The High Court yesterday refused to extend an injunction prohibiting the developers of a hotel and office scheme proposed for Dublin's College Street carrying out work on the site.
Mr Justice Quirke, at a special all-day sitting of the court, held that proposed preparatory work by the developers, Treasury Holdings Ltd, was not unlawful or unauthorised.
Lancefort Ltd, an incorporated group of conservationists, had objected to work beginning on the site until all compliance orders, associated with dual planning permissions, had been agreed by Dublin Corporation.
Mr Justice Quirke told Mr Paul Gallagher SC, for Treasury Holdings, that no evidence had been adduced by Lancefort from which he could reasonably infer that any unauthorised or unlawful activity was occurring, or would occur in the near future, at the site.
He accepted assurances from Treasury Holdings that there was no question of any development beginning before all the relevant planning permissions had been complied with and that the proposed immediate work, to re-accommodate AIB staff within one of the buildings, was an exempted development.
Mr Justice Quirke said he was satisfied that the proposed development, as outlined in the planning permissions pertaining to it, had not begun at this stage.
He awarded costs of yesterday's hearing against Lancefort - but made no order on costs of the initial ex-parte hearing, at which Mr Justice O'Higgins had granted an interim order prohibiting further work on the site until yesterday's determination by the court.
Mr Justice Quirke had earlier been told that Treasury Holdings would incur huge losses if the conservationists won judicial realignments of planning permissions and work start-up dates.
A Treasury Holdings director, Mr John Ronan, said a 1997 challenge to a plan to build a dual hotel-office block on the site had already cost it £2.25 million.
If Lancefort's challenge succeeded, Treasury Holdings would be left with a withering planning permission for an offices-only complex, on which delays were already costing £43,000 a week.
For every week his company delayed in delivering its sub-lease space to the owners, AIB, beyond September 1999 it would have to pay the bank £10,000. In addition, his company would face very high claims, because of delays, from the main contractor, P.J. Wall and Co, and from subcontractors.
Mr Ronan said further delays would jeopardise talks with an international hotel chain interested in taking control of the hotel proposed in his company's preferred development plan.
Already the Hilton Group had pulled out.
The Hilton project had involved the creation of 250 jobs and would have been a very important base for the tourist industry in Dublin.
Mr Ronan told the court that preliminary works, including demolition, would be necessary no matter which scheme proceeded.
The hotel scheme had been challenged in the High Court by Lancefort and a reserved judgment on this challenge was imminent. If Lancefort's challenge to the developer's preferred hotel scheme were to succeed, Treasury Holdings would be left with only the permission on the office scheme and this would wither if substantial works had not been completed by May.