Supreme Court upholds Kilkenny couple's objection to construction of mobile phone mast
A Co Kilkenny couple has won a landmark decision in the Supreme Court ensuring they can challenge an An Bord Pleanála decision to allow a mobile phone mast to be built beside their property.Peter Thomson and his wife Doreen had initially objected to the construction of the mast adjacent to their home in Kells alleging that the decision to grant permission had been affected by “bias”.That objection was dismissed by the High Court as being made outside the time limit of eight weeks for taking a legal action, only for that decision to be overturned by the Court of Appeal.An Bord Pleanála subsequently appealed that decision to the Supreme Court with arguments being heard from both sides in January of this year.The latest unanimous decision by the five justices of the higher court means that the Thomsons’ objection can finally be heard in the High Court.The couple’s case had alleged the statistical probability was zero that An Bord Pleanála’s former deputy chair Paul Hyde — one of nine board members at the time — would have been allocated 42 out of 49 mast applications by Eircom in less than two years.Mr Hyde had approved the 15m-tall mast beside the Thomsons’ property against the advice of his own planning inspector, Philippa Joyce, in June 2021.In May 2022, the Irish Examiner first reported Mr Hyde had overruled his own planning inspectors’ recommendations for refusal of mast applications in 86% of cases over a 20-month period up to May 2022 — roughly eight times the average for such an occurrence.Although evidence of alleged irregularities in the decision-making of Mr Hyde became public knowledge in May 2022, the Thomsons did not take their action until November — six months later — with Peter Thomson’s submission to the court stating he had feared “an adverse costs order”.Mr Hyde eventually resigned from An Bord Pleanála before being criminally convicted of making false or misleading declarations regarding his own assets in 2023.In the unanimous judgement for the Supreme Court dismissing the board's appeal, Justice Seamus Woulfe agreed with the Court of Appeal that the public interest of seeing the Hyde decisions tested in court should outweigh in importance the need for the commercial certainty provided by decisions made by the planning body being guaranteed to stand once the statute of limitations had expired.He noted that the allegations made by the Thomsons “go far beyond the facts of one individual planning decision, and involve systemic issues about the operation of the board over a number of years and the integrity of the planning regime in this jurisdiction”.Reacting to the decision solicitor Eoin Brady, a partner at FP Logue Solicitors who acted for the Thomsons for the case’s duration, said that it was “a welcome confirmation from the Supreme Court of the critical importance of the integrity of the planning system”.“When there are questions over the integrity and objectivity of our national planning institutions, it results in a significant corrosion of public confidence which ultimately undermines democracy,” Mr Brady said, adding that the decision "reflects the importance of the public interest in the integrity of our planning system".
