The High Court has told Mr John Caldwell that he may apply on Monday for leave to bring a legal challenge to prevent the Mahon planning tribunal from continuing hearings into a series of land deals in which he was involved.
Mr Caldwell is attempting by way of judicial review to stop the tribunal's Carrickmines 2 module which began on Tuesday. It is inquiring into land deals at Coolamber, Lucan, Co Dublin, in which Mr Caldwell was involved with Mr Jim Kennedy and Mr Liam Lawlor.
When Mr Paul Gardiner SC, for Mr Caldwell, told Mr Justice Quirke yesterday of the proposed application for leave to seek a judicial review, the judge said the appropriate thing to do was to make the application on Monday (when the court usually deals with such applications unless they can be shown to be urgent).
Mr Gardiner said if the tribunal continued, Mr Caldwell was facing two or three years more of it in circumstances where he had already spent three years dealing with the inquiry.
Mr Gardiner said the modules concerned were unnecessary and of no value.
He agreed to the matter being dealt with on Monday and said he did not believe this would prejudice his client, who would not be seeking an interim injunction without the other side being heard.
The tribunal would then be put on notice that the application for a judicial review had been made.
Last Wednesday, counsel for Mr Caldwell told the tribunal that he had "no option" but to go to the High Court after the tribunal refused to hear them argue why the hearings should not take place.
Mr Ian Finlay SC, for Mr Caldwell, had asked to be allowed to make submissions on the matter. If that was not allowed, he said his client would be left with no alternative but to apply to the High Court for a judicial review.