The High Court has rejected an attempt by Leitrim County Council to prevent a former hotel from being used to house 155 international protection applicants.
Mr Justice Richard Humphreys found the proposed use of the Abbey Manor Hotel in Dromahair was not, as alleged by the council, unlawful and he said it “can go ahead”.
He said Dromaprop Limited, which owns the property, was entitled to avail of a planning exemption to change the use of the hotel, which shut in 2009, to accommodate “protected persons” under a 12-month contract with the Department of Integration.
He refused the council’s request for an order prohibiting the temporary housing of asylum seekers at the premises. The judge also found in Dromaprop’s favour in a separate case taken over the council’s decisions rejecting its building compliance certificate for works to convert the hotel for use as asylum seeker accommodation.
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The council last January declared Dromaprop’s certificate invalid and refused to enter it on to its official register. Mr Justice Humphreys said the firm made out its case that the local authority had acted “irrationally, unreasonably and unlawfully” in how it dealt with the compliance certificate application.
Dromaprop, represented by Niall Handy SC and Kevin Bell, instructed by Shannon & O’Connor Solicitors, submitted that the invalidation came unexpectedly while the council was under local political pressure regarding the proposed use of the hotel.
Last November, a group of Dromahair locals held protests in the village over concerns that asylum seekers were to be accommodated at the hotel.
Mr Justice Humphreys said there was “relatively co-operative” correspondence between the council and Dromaprop before the council took a “startling handbrake turn”.
The “kitchen-sink nature” of the local authority’s rejection, which ran to hundreds of pages, was “something approximating to an uninformed person’s idea of a clever decision”, as if the council believed more headings was another sandbag against challenge, he said.
He also upheld Dromaprop’s argument that the council erred by invaliding the certificate because it related only to a completed phase of construction works and did not include the whole building’s completion.
Dromaprop, which has offices in Lucan, Co Dublin, alleged this was materially incorrect where the only portions of the development not included in the certificate were in the basement, which is not going to be used at all.
The judge said the regulations feature a clear statutory intention to allow partial certification of buildings or projects. He said the rejection was “opaque”, out-of-time and generalised.
He overturned the invalidation decision and found the council is obliged to register the certificate “forthwith”. He said he assumes the council does not need to delay more than about a day to satisfy this “mere technicality”.
Mr Justice Humphreys said there remain some further legal issues in the council’s case relating to alleged noncompliance of internal building works with planning permission. However, he said these matters cannot undermine the legality of the change of use of the hotel.
In considering whether it wishes to press remaining concerns to the “Nth degree”, the judge said the council “can take comfort that not only have any local feelings been ventilated (if that’s relevant, which the council seems to say it isn’t) but the majesty of the law has been vindicated” in that no unlawful act has been excused.
Given the reduced scope of possible noncompliance that could potentially arise, Dromaprop could potentially continue to advance its complaint that it is being “singled out for intense scrutiny”, he said.
A modest pause to the proceedings also allows the company to avail of any mechanisms that could alleviate concerns of the council or the court, he added.
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