{"id":326123,"date":"2026-03-03T05:27:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T05:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/326123\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T05:27:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T05:27:10","slug":"wind-farm-developer-coolglass-awarded-50-of-legal-costs-in-landmark-supreme-court-challenge-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/326123\/","title":{"rendered":"Wind farm developer Coolglass awarded 50% of legal costs in landmark Supreme Court challenge \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A wind farm<\/a> developer has been awarded 50 per cent of its legal costs incurred in a landmark Supreme Court<\/a> challenge related to climate law obligations of planning authorities and public bodies.<\/p>\n

Last month, the seven-judge court upheld a High Court<\/a> order that overturned An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la<\/a>\u2019s (ACP) 2024 refusal of planning permission for Coolglass Wind Farm Ltd\u2019s project, but for reasons different and narrower than those cited by the lower court.<\/p>\n

The ruling made it clear that climate obligations were \u201creal, effective and, if necessary, enforceable\u201d and created a \u201clegal standard which must be complied with by a relevant body\u201d.<\/p>\n

Such obligations were binding on bodies with no planning function and bodies \u201cnot normally concerned with issues of climate change<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

Coolglass wants to build the 13-turbine farm at Timahoe, Co Laois<\/a>, in a location 2km from the Kilkenny border and 11km southeast of Portlaoise.<\/p>\n

In light of the ruling, the matter will be returned for consideration by ACP, formerly An Bord Plean\u00e1la.<\/p>\n

In a judgment on the case\u2019s legal costs published on Monday, the Supreme Court said it could not be said that Coolglass had been \u201centirely successful\u201d in its appeal, as several grounds of its case were rejected. <\/p>\n

The court noted that while Coolglass succeeded in the \u201cmost important\u201d aspect of the case, ACP prevailed in the majority of grounds of appeal advanced by the developer. <\/p>\n

In those circumstances, the court said it was appropriate to award Coolgass 50 per cent of its costs incurred in the appeal and previous High Court challenge against ACP. The court made no order for costs against the Attorney General<\/a>, who was also a party to the case. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A wind farm developer has been awarded 50 per cent of its legal costs incurred in a landmark…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[86425,2885,61,60,8285,43,3400,16389,8779],"class_list":{"0":"post-326123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-attorney-general","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-laois","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-renewable-energy","15":"tag-renewables","16":"tag-supreme-court"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}