About the Planning and Environment Court

The Planning & Environment Court is a division of the High Court established by Practice Direction signed by President Barniville with effect from 11 December 2023.  The current Practice Direction is HC126.  Parties and practitioners should familiarise themselves with this Practice Direction.  The judge in charge of the Court is Judge Humphreys, and the other Judges assigned to the List as of November 2024 are Judges Holland and Farrell.

The purpose of the Court is to provide as efficient a processing as is consistent with justice of such planning and environmental cases, and related cases as specified above, as are assigned or admitted to the Planning and Environment List.

The specific goals of the List include:

1. to provide a specialised mechanism to process cases across a comprehensive definition of the planning and environment field, broadly defined, compliant with the Aarhus Convention, the EU law right to an effective remedy and other applicable domestic, European and international standards;
2. to provide effective and paperless access to justice for cases within the List and to provide their efficient, fair and equitable disposition;
3. to the extent requested by any party, to provide such certainty as can be achieved as to costs rules prior to the incurring of inter partes costs in the proceedings;
4. to maximise use of resources and minimise costs through case management, in order to minimise the need for or incidence of multiple interlocutory or interim applications and adjourned substantive hearings, and to take any other steps so that matters proceed expeditiously to hearing and, when at hearing, are expeditiously determined;
5. so far as resources permit, to provide hearing dates to all cases eligible for a List to Fix Dates (LFD) for a particular term, within the term to which the LFD relates;
6. to promote the general objective, through modularisation or otherwise, that issues as to the validity of laws or measures of general application are normally dealt with only if other domestic or EU law points are not determinative; and
7. to balance the demands on the judges assigned to the List so that the court can deliver judgments in a timely manner, and, insofar as possible, within a 2 month period during term from the date on which judgment is reserved.

The List encompasses the following categories of cases;

i. proceedings related to decisions or other acts and omissions involving any of the following EU legislation or any legislation amending or replacing them (or any EU legislation which was replaced by the following), including proceedings related to the adequacy of transposition of such EU legislation:

1. the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive, 91/271/EEC; 
2. the Nitrates Directive, 91/676/EEC;
3. the Habitats Directive, 92/43/EEC;
4. the Aarhus Convention 1998 as an element of EU law;
5. the Water Framework Directive, 2000/60/EC;
6. the SEA Directive, 2001/42/EC;
7. the National Emissions Ceiling Directive, 2016/2284;
8. the Environmental Noise Directive, 2002/49/EC;
9. the Directive on access to information on the environment (AIE), 2003/4/EC;
10. the Environmental Liability Directive, 2004/35/EC;
11. the Bathing Water Directive, 2006/7/EC;
12. the Groundwater Directive, 2006/118/EC;
13. the Clean Air For Europe Directive, 2008/50/EC;
14. the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, 2008/56/EC;
15. the Waste Framework Directive, 2008/98/EC;
16. the Birds Directive, 2009/147/EC;
17. the Industrial Emissions Directive, 2010/75/EU;
18. the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Directive, 2011/92/EU as amended by 2014/52/EU;
19. the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive, 2014/89/EU;
20. the Drinking Water Directive, (EU) 2020/2184;
21. any other EU directive, regulation or other instrument relating to land use, the marine environment, environmental aspects of agriculture and fisheries, water, species, habitats, climate, air, atmosphere, soil,  landscape, genetically modified organisms, archaeological, historic and cultural heritage or any other aspect of or otherwise relating to the environment; or

ii. proceedings related to decisions or other acts and omissions under any of the following legislation or any legislation amending or replacing them (or any legislation which was replaced by the following), including challenges to the validity of such legislation or the adequacy of transposition of EU law therein:

1. the Foreshore Act 1933;
2. the Local Government (Water Pollution) Act 1977;
3. the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992;
4. the Roads Act 1993;
5. the Waste Management Act 1996;
6. the Planning and Development Act 2000;
7. the European Communities (Access to Information on the Environment) Regulations 2007 (S.I. No. 133 of 2007);
8. the European Communities (Birds and Natural Habitats) Regulations 2011;
9. the Forestry Act 2014;
10. the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015;
11. the Minerals Development Act 2017;
12. the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021;
13. statutory provisions referred to in section 4(4) of the Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2011 or any other legislation providing for the grant of development consent or environmental licensing, including non-exhaustively or legislation providing procedures for consent for infrastructure projects;
14. legislation regarding air pollution, dumping at sea, environmental aspects of fisheries, gas, national oil reserves, petroleum, sea pollution or wildlife;
15. any other legislation relating to land use, the marine environment, environmental aspects of agriculture and fisheries, water, species, habitats, climate, air, atmosphere, soil,  landscape, genetically modified organisms, archaeological, historic and cultural heritage or any other aspect of or otherwise relating to the environment; or
16. any other legislation giving effect to the directives referred to above or to international legal instruments relating to fields covered by the foregoing.

Requirements of the List

Legal practitioners and persons taking legal proceedings encompassed by the Planning and Environment List are directed to review the requirements of the list as set forth in Practice Direction 126. From time to time the Judge in charge of the List may issue guidance notes or bulletins with content relevant to the operation of the list. These notices will be published on this webpage or in Practice Direction 126.

Any person requesting access to a remote hearing otherwise than via a link supplied to parties and legal representatives should contact the List Registrar via environment@courts.ie.

A circulation list is maintained by the List Registrar. If you wish to be added to this circulation list then please contact environment@courts.ie.

Any matter for the direct attention of a judge of the Court should be emailed to that Judge’s judicial assistant.  Emails addresses are set out in the current page of the Legal Diary.

In June 2020, the Programme for Government was published envisaging the establishment of a Planning & Environment Court.  As a precursor to the implementation of that decision, in October 2020, President Irvine established a Commercial Planning and Strategic Infrastructure Development (SID) List, managed by Judge Humphreys, to cover SID cases and planning cases admitted to the Commercial Court. With effect from the commencement of the list, a practice direction (HC96) provided for a requirement for core grounds of challenge to avoid unfocused statements of grounds.  In January 2021 a revised practice direction (HC103) introduced default terms for an order granting leave.  A core book of pleadings was required from April 2021.  In June 2021 a revised practice direction (HC107) introduced the requirement to lodge papers electronically rather than physically on the court’s ShareFile platform, and formalised the requirement for a core book of pleadings.

A second judge, Judge Holland, was assigned in October 2021.  In April 2022, Large-scale residential development was added to the list by addendum to the practice direction.  In September 2022, by practice direction HC114, President Barniville transferred the function of admitting cases to the list from the Commercial Court to the list itself.  In November 2022 the Government made a formal decision to support the establishment of the Planning & Environment Court.

In April 2023, further practice direction (HC119) restructured the list as the Commercial Planning and Environmental List, making provision for a wide range of environmental matters to be covered by the list subject to commerciality, as well as access to information on the environment cases and satellite cases/ alleged strategic litigation against public participation.  Authorities were to be provided by way of a list rather than full copies except where not available on the web.  A third judge, Judge Farrell, was assigned to the list in October 2023.

On foot of the Government decision, the Planning & Environment Court was formally established by President Barniville on 11 December 2023 (practice direction HC124).   This removed the requirement for commerciality and allowed all planning and environment cases to be dealt with by the Court.  It included provisions to manage claims for costs protection in an orderly way.  A default directions schedule was included in the practice direction.

In April 2024 PD HC124 was recast to allow hearings of certain matters on the papers by consent, and to provide for cases to be automatically listed in the list to fix dates following completion of pleadings rather than being mentioned following opposition papers and from time to time thereafter.   In June 2024, PD HC126 was adopted, providing for current procedures in the Planning & Environment Court.  It designated the applicant as the default document management party, and provided for a standard procedure for hearings (2-3 days) or an expedited procedure (3.5 hours), in particular in relation to projects covered by the renewable energy directive and certain other cases.

In November 2024 a standard list of authorities was published on the P&E Court webpage.  In December 2024 a Users’ Group was established with 17 members representing a wide range of stakeholders, to give feedback and views on Court procedures.

In March 2025, a live online observation channel at a publicly available web address was established for the main list, to enable practitioners and other interested parties to view proceedings remotely. 

In April 2025 the Court web page was redesigned with a view to publishing material in a more user-friendly manner.  A user feedback exercise was also launched with a view to improving the user experience in the Court.