A row over the handling of cargo at Drogheda Port has come before the High Court.
Keegan Quarries has brought judicial review proceedings against the Drogheda Port Company over what the applicant claims is the respondent’s refusal to grant it a permit to allow it to handle cement at a storage facility in the port.
Groups within Keegan Quarries, the court heard, produce ready-mix and precast concrete and claim to keep the group competitive wish to import and export cement and related products directly from other countries via Drogheda Port.
At the High Court on Friday Martin Hayden SC with Frank Crean, instructed by Kent Carthy Solicitors, told the court that the action arises out of the respondent’s decision last June to grant his client a permit that allows it to use a part of the port for storage.
The permit also allows Keegan Quarries to unload and load cargo from vessels in the harbour, with a limitation that it applies to the applicants’ own products only.
The permit does not allow products, including cement, owned by third parties to be handled at the storage facility.
Counsel said that the inflexible decision is unlawful, unjust, contrary to European Union law and is anticompetitive and should be set aside.
No adequate reasons for the port company’s decision, counsel added.
Counsel said that Keegan Quarries has leased a site within the port from the respondent, which operates the port, from where it has contrasted eight storage silos which it is to use for the import and export of bulk materials.
The units were completed last year, he said.
Counsel said that Keegan was also required to apply to the respondent for a port operators permit and held several discussions with the port company about this matter between 2020 and 2022.
During these discussions the applicant claims that the port company’s representatives told them that they “did not care what was imported as long as it wasn’t cement”.
Keegan Quarries claims the port company also told them that if cement was “in the mix” the application for the permit would not be supported.
Mr Hayden said that during one meeting the port company’s representative was asked, but declined to answer, Keegan Quarries’ question if Cement Roadstone Holdings had asked the respondent to adopt this position regarding cement.
Counsel said that the only entity that offers unloading and loading or stevedore services in the port is Fast Terminals (Ireland) Ltd.
Counsel said this firm had failed to issue a quotation to the applicant for the handling of cement or other cargo.
Counsel said the respondent exercised a fair degree of control over Fast Terminals as it owns 50 per cent of the stevedore company’s share capital and appoints two of that firm’s directors.
In its action against the port company Keegan Quarries seeks various orders and declarations from the court including an order quashing the respondent’s decision to issue the plaintiff with a cargo-handling permit limited to handling the own products.
It also wants its application for a port operators permit for cargo handling remitted back to the respondent for a fresh determination.
Keegan Quarries is also seeking several declarations including that the decision to issue it with a permit to carry out cargo handling services of the applicant’s own products is unlawful, unreasonable, irrational and was made outside of the port company’s powers.
It further seeks declarations that the respondent’s policy of determining applications for cargo handling services permits amounts to an unlawful restraint on the applicant’s freedom to trade, is anticompetitive and distorts markets including cement and stevedoring services.
The matter was before Ms Justice Marguerite Bolger, who on an ex-parte basis granted Keegan Quarries Ltd permission to bring its challenge against the company.
The matter will return before the court after the new legal terms commence in October.
