{"id":553508,"date":"2026-07-16T23:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T23:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/553508\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T23:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T23:28:11","slug":"high-court-gives-last-chance-to-resolve-delays-in-defective-block-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/553508\/","title":{"rendered":"High Court gives \u2018last chance\u2019 to resolve delays in defective block action"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defective Blocks Ireland (DBI) has welcomed a Commercial Court decision to adjourn next week\u2019s motions in the long-running defective blocks litigation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The court also fixed fresh hearing dates in October and made an order for costs in favour of DBI, a non-profit set up by Buncrana businessmen Adrian Sheridan and Shaun Hegarty.<\/p>\n

At a hearing on Tuesday, Ms Justice Eileen Roberts said motions concerning expert testing of quarry samples had been before the court for too long and made clear that the case now requires sharper focus, firm timetables and meaningful progress from the experts involved.<\/p>\n

Ms Justice Roberts set aside the two-day hearing, previously fixed for 21 and 22 July, and instead set down a new two-day hearing for 20 and 21 October 2026 to deal with the outstanding motions concerning testing of samples taken from Gransha Quarry. She also directed that the matter return to court on 23 September for an update on an in-person meeting between the parties\u2019 experts and the Danish Technological Institute (DTI) in Copenhagen, which is expected to take place in August.<\/p>\n

In her ruling, Ms Justice Roberts acknowledged the \u201cundoubtedly\u201d high level of frustration at delays in completing the expert testing and said her aim was to secure \u201cthe shortest outcome in the long- term\u201d, rather than allow the case to \u201ccontinue to go around in circles\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last Chance<\/p>\n

She described the adjournment as a \u201clast chance\u201d for the experts to narrow or resolve the remaining dispute over testing methodology before the motions are heard in October.<\/p>\n

During the hearing, John Gordon SC, counsel for the homeowners, strongly opposed the application to adjourn. He reminded the Court that the plaintiffs\u2019 motion had been brought at the invitation of the court after, he said, the National Standards Authority of Ireland\u2019s expert had \u2018consistently frustrated the completion of the work of DTI for over 12 months\u2019.<\/p>\n

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Mr Gordon argued that despite repeated requests from both DTI and the plaintiffs\u2019 expert, there had been no clear or workable explanation of the testing methodology being sought, arguing that the NSAI expert had repeatedly changed his position throughout the process.<\/p>\n

Mr Gordon further told the court that the continued delays were \u2018really intolerable\u2019 for<\/p>\n

homeowners and \u2018deeply prejudicial\u2019 to their interests. He argued that the litigation had \u2018gone on for far too long\u2019 and urged the court to allow the motions proceed without further delay, stating: \u201cWe are dancing on the head of a pin here and we are losing valuable time.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also stated that the original motion brought by the NSAI \u2018should never have been brought\u2019, arguing that \u2018all it did was block the progress of the testing.\u2019<\/p>\n

Mr Gordon also told the court that DTI had repeatedly sought clarity on the additional testing requested by the NSAI\u2019s expert but had been unable to obtain clear instructions, saying the Danish institute wanted simply to complete its work in accordance with the recognised testing standards.<\/p>\n

He argued that while further discussions could continue after the hearing if required, the Court should first hear and determine the motions so that the litigation could finally move forward<\/p>\n

In a further development, Ms Justice Roberts ruled that the plaintiffs are entitled to the costs of Tuesday\u2019s application, though she granted a stay on that order pending the determination of the proceedings.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defective Blocks Ireland (DBI) has welcomed a Commercial Court decision to adjourn next week\u2019s motions in the long-running…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60],"class_list":["post-553508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553508","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=553508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}