Section 160 Injunctions Cannot Be Used to Collaterally Attack Planning Permissions –
Malone v Laois County Council & Ors ([2025] IEHC 345)

1. Introduction

In Malone & McEvoy v Laois County Council, ABP & Booth Precast Concrete Ltd ([2025] IEHC 345) Mr Justice David Holland considered four strike-out motions directed at an elaborate pro se section 160 application brought by two environmental activists. The applicants sought:

• injunctions restraining numerous quarry and concrete-production activities,
• wide-ranging declarations that historic planning permissions were void for breaches of EU environmental law,
• EU-law-based damages and a reference to the Court of Justice.

The respondents—Laois County Council (“LCC”), An Bord Pleanála (“ABP”) and the operator Booth—argued that the proceedings were ultra vires section 160, amounted to an impermissible collateral attack on long-final planning permissions and should be struck out as bound to fail. Justice Holland acceded to the motions in part, dismissing the case entirely as against LCC and ABP and pruning it severely as against Booth. The judgment has become the clearest modern statement that:

Section 160 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 is not a back-door route for challenging the validity of planning permissions; any such attack is barred by the procedural exclusivity and time limits in section 50.

2. Summary of the Judgment

1. Strike-out jurisdiction. The Court reaffirmed that — since the 2023 amendment of Order 19 rule 28 — the Superior Courts’ inherent ability to dismiss claims “bound to fail” is codified in that rule.
2. Section 50 exclusivity prevails. All arguments that the impugned planning permissions (1996–2024) were void for want of EIA/AA were collateral challenges. They could only have been raised by timely judicial review. Section 160 cannot be used instead.
3. EU-law “effective-remedy” arguments rejected. Following Krikke, Stadt Wiener Neustadt and others, Irish eight-week JR limits satisfy the principles of equivalence and effectiveness. Article 19 TEU does not require a second remedial track.
4. No cause of action against LCC or ABP. Neither authority was carrying out, nor in direct control of, any alleged unauthorised development; therefore no injunctive order could lie against them.
5. Proceedings survive only on two narrow issues against Booth:
   • whether the 1996 quarry permission (PL95/300) has expired so that ongoing extraction is now unauthorised; and
   • whether waste-management activities on site constitute unauthorised development.

3. Detailed Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited and Their Influence

• Krikke v Barranafaddock (2022, SC) – confirmed that s.50 time limits and exclusivity comply with EU law; used as direct authority that collateral attacks via s.160 are impermissible.
• Narconon Trust (2021, CA) – substance prevails over form; attempts to re-litigate earlier declarations constitute abuse.
• Scotchstone, Moylist, Keohane – restated principles governing strike-out jurisdiction.
• Stadt Wiener Neustadt & XC – CJEU jurisprudence on procedural autonomy, equivalence & effectiveness.
• McTigue Quarries, Harte Peat – cited by applicants for proposition that permissions granted without EIA are invalid; distinguished because such invalidity must be pleaded in time via JR.
• Fortune (No. 4) – confirms High Court can grant limited declaratory relief in s.160 proceedings, but only ancillary to injunctive purpose.

3.2 Court’s Legal Reasoning

1. Scope of Section 160. It is a “specific, focussed, generally summary” remedy aimed solely at stopping and/or remediating unauthorised development. It cannot:
   • question the legal validity of planning permissions;
   • compel public authorities to exercise separate statutory powers (mandamus route instead);
   • yield damages.
2. Procedural exclusivity of s.50. By using the mandatory words “shall not question,” the Oireachtas created a bar on any forum other than timely judicial review for attacking planning decisions – a principle affirmed since KSK (1994).
3. EU Law does not override s.50. The applicants relied on Articles 19 TEU / 47 CFR, but the Court held:
   • Judicial review is an effective remedy; one functioning remedy is enough.
   • Domestic JR time limits are reasonable and thus compatible with EU requirements.
   • No duty to create “fallback” effective remedies when the primary one has lapsed through the applicant’s own inaction.
4. Strike-out test applied. Accepting every factual assertion arguendo, the claims against LCC and ABP were still doomed because no possible order under s.160 could issue against them. Against Booth, only two issues survived the “no reasonable chance of success” filter.
5. Declaratory relief. The High Court retains a limited ancillary power to declare a development unauthorised (per Fortune), but not to issue broad constitutional/EU pronouncements detached from that underlying purpose.

3.3 Practical Impact of the Decision

The judgment crystallises several practical rules which will shape future environmental litigation:

• S.160 is no Trojan horse. Litigants cannot use it as an indirect means of reopening EIA/AA grievances long after permissions have become final.
• Careful respondent selection. Public authorities should not be named as defendants in s.160 proceedings unless they are in control of the physical site or necessary for discretionary reasons. They may, however, stay in as notice parties.
• Damages off the table. Section 160 applicants must commence a separate civil action if they want monetary relief.
• Strike-out motions encouraged where s.160 is misused. The Court signals that such motions are appropriate—and cost-effective—when claims are inherently outside the statute’s scope.
• Existential importance of timely JR. Activists and practitioners must file Order 84 proceedings within eight weeks or lose the ability to challenge consents forever.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

Section 160 PDA 2000

A statutory mechanism enabling the High Court or Circuit Court to order the cessation or rectification of “unauthorised development”. It is largely summary – commenced by motion on affidavit – and aimed at practical site-based enforcement.

Collateral Attack

Attempting to invalidate a decision indirectly in proceedings that are not the designated route for doing so. For planning matters, any attack on an earlier permission outside Order 84 is collateral and barred.

Procedural Autonomy / Equivalence / Effectiveness

EU doctrine giving Member States freedom to design court procedures, so long as (i) EU-law claims are treated no worse than similar domestic ones (equivalence) and (ii) the procedure does not make enforcement of EU rights virtually impossible or excessively difficult (effectiveness).

Inherent Strike-out Jurisdiction

The court’s power—now codified in Order 19 r.28—to dismiss all or part of an action that reveals no tenable cause, is bound to fail or constitutes an abuse.

5. Conclusion

Malone v Laois CC is now the leading Irish authority on the limits of section 160 proceedings. It definitively holds that:

• The section’s injunctive jurisdiction cannot be converted into a surrogate judicial-review forum.
• Statutory time limits and exclusivity in section 50 are fully compatible with EU law and will be rigorously enforced.
• Public authorities are improper defendants to s.160 motions unless they physically control, or can physically remedy, the alleged unauthorised development.

Environmental litigants are therefore on clear notice: if they wish to impugn consents on EIA/AA grounds they must do so promptly under Order 84, not belatedly under section 160. The judgment also provides a clear procedural roadmap for respondents and for the Courts when faced with mis-targeted planning injunctions. By narrowing the surviving issues to a possible expiry of a 1996 quarry permission and to alleged on-site waste activities, the Court models a disciplined, proportionate approach to planning enforcement litigation—one that honours both domestic statutory schemes and the EU principle of effective judicial protection.