About this case:

• Citation:
  [2025] IEHC 413
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  High Court
• Judge:
  Mr Justice David Holland

Delivering an ex tempore judgment for the High Court, Mr Justice David Holland determined that the High Court had an own motion jurisdiction to determine mootness and refused to hear the moot issues which included the injunctive relief sought, most of the issues relating to the accommodation of international protection applicants, beneficiaries of temporary protection and other immigrants, and issues of planning law, environmental public participation law and environmental impact assessment law.

Background

The plaintiffs brought proceedings objecting to inter alia the housing of international protection applicants at the former Crown Paints site in Coolock, Co Dublin. The plaintiffs were refused interlocutory relief in October 2024.

In February and March 2025, the defendants issued motions to strike out the proceedings as disclosing no reasonable cause of action, amounting to an abuse of process, bound to fail, and/or having no reasonable chance of succeeding.

Thereafter, on 15 May 2025, the government publicly announced that it no longer intended to set up an International Protection Accommodation Service (IPAS) accommodation centre on the site.

Mr Justice Holland, having become aware of the announcement, listed the case before the High Court and sought written submissions from the parties. All parties took the position that they wanted the case to proceed. 

The High Court raised questions of its own motion as to whether, given the parties’ unanimous desire for the case to proceed, it should decide the defendants’ motions to strike out and whether it had jurisdiction to declare a moot of its own motion. 

The court also enquired as to what, evidentially, was the defendants’ position as to the prospects of the IPAS accommodation centre, as to whether any part of the case was moot, and if so, whether the court should nonetheless hear the case.

The High Court

Having considered the plaintiffs’ claims, Mr Justice Holland moved to consider the first question. Noting that the plaintiffs had failed to address that question, the judge agreed with the defendants that the High Court had an own motion jurisdiction to consider mootness having regard to Farrell v Governor of St Patrick’s Institution [2012] IEHC 429, O’Meara v Westmeath County Council [2025] IEHC 192 and Lofinmakin v Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform [2013] 4 IR 274. 

In particular, Mr Justice Holland found that the relevant considerations were grounded in the court’s own proper interests, and adopted the observation of the State defendants that any other view would imply that the parties could contrive to force the court to decide a hypothetical case and to issue an advisory opinion in contravention of its constitutional mandate.

Turning to the factual prospects of an IPAS centre on the Crown Paints site, the court was satisfied that it was improbable that the project would proceed where the State’s position was that for the foreseeable future, there is no prospect of an IPAS centre on the site and that Townbe no longer intended to construct an IPAS centre there.

As to whether the proceedings were moot, Mr Justice Holland determined that any case which was factually reliant on an asserted prospect of fear of an IPAS centre on the Crown Paints site lacked any immediacy or force of reality and so there was no concrete factual dispute requiring and contextualising the question that the High Court was asked to answer. In those circumstances, the judge held that the proceedings were moot.

On the issue of whether the court should nonetheless hear the moot proceedings, Mr Justice Holland considered that the arguments for deciding the moots were threefold, based on prospective and extant similar cases, important issues of law and on the fact that declaratory relief was sought by the plaintiffs.

As to the first argument, the court considered the parties submissions that the moot issues were capable of repetition where an appreciable number of similar cases are extant and where more could be anticipated.

In this regard, the court focused on the judgment of Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman in G v Collins [2004] IESC 38, [2005] 1 ILRM 1 in which it was noted that “an issue is not deemed moot if it is ‘capable of repetition, yet evading review’”.

The court accepted that in general terms litigation opposing IPAS centres and other similar accommodation facilities is capable of repetition, but observed that none of the parties had addressed argument to the phrase “yet evading review”.

Mr Justice Holland opined: “As I understand this phrase, it addresses the concern that particular types of legal issue and dispute are, of their nature, both time-limited and likely to become moot before they get to trial. Further, it is the likelihood that future such disputes will, for that reason, be likely to again escape review, which underlies this exception to the principle that moots should not be decided…”

Noting that there must be an “evidential foundation for such an expectation”, the judge concluded that there was no reason to consider that such a likelihood was in prospect.

The court also reasoned that while many of the legal issues raised in the case were important, that was not enough to justify hearing the moots as moots “can be heard only exceptionally, reluctantly, sparingly, with caution and where ‘there are other factors’ at play”.

The court was similarly unconvinced by the fact that declaratory reliefs were sought, highlighting:

Mr Justice Holland also considered inter alia that advice from the State defendants’ counsel to the effect that judgment already stood reserved in another case with broadly similar legal issues further diminished “any impetus to decide similar issues in a moot”.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the High Court found that all legal and factual issues relating the project were moot and refused to decide them. 

The court invited submissions from the parties as to what remained in the case and the form of order to ensue from the judgment. 

Croghan & Ors v Collins & Ors [2025] IEHC 413