A local man has exhausted all available options here to appeal the dismissal of his challenge aimed at overturning permission for a €3.76 billion expansion of Intel Ireland's plant in Co Kildare.
The Supreme Court, in a recently published determination, refused to hear an appeal by Thomas Reid against the High Court's rejection of his challenge to An Bord Pleanála's permission for the project expanding Intel's 160-acre campus at Leixlip by 30 acres following a four-year construction phase.
Mr Reid previously won a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2015 preventing the use of compulsory purchase orders for his 29-hectare Hedsor House farm, located some 500m to the west of the site of the proposed development.
In May 2021, the High Court's Mr Justice Richard Humphreys dismissed Mr Reid's challenge over the November 2019 expansion permission.
The judge did so “without much enthusiasm” due to his suspicion the board did not fully understand the science behind Intel’s development proposal. The board had accepted the developer’s materials without noticing an error in relation to the critical issue of ammonia emissions, he said.
Scientific evidence
A considerable amount of the High Court hearing had concerned its precise scope. That arose following a pre-trial ruling by the judge, on the application of Intel, excluding certain evidence which Mr Reid sought to advance, including new scientific evidence.
Lawyers for Mr Reid later sought the necessary certificate to bring an appeal against the judge’s decision.
In a further judgment last October, Mr Justice Humphreys ruled Mr Reid had not met the criteria for leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal in that he had not raised points of law of exceptional public importance.
Mr Reid then applied to the Supreme Court to hear an appeal.
A three-judge panel of the Supreme Court, in their determination published earlier this month, said Mr Reid argued his case raises important issues about “best scientific knowledge”, “lacuna” and “reasonable scientific doubt” in an appropriate assessment (AA).
The matter of general public importance implicitly contended for appeared to be that the test for AA applied by the High Court ignored the requirement for best scientific knowledge, the court noted. The court was not satisfied Mr Reid had demonstrated any matter of general public importance justifying a Supreme Court appeal.
The proposed appeal appears to be on the merits of the case and that did not meet the relevant criteria, it said. An appeal was also not necessary in the interests of justice as the matters set out by Mr Reid appeared to be evidential matters, which also did not meet the appeal criteria, it said.
