Balance of justice favours refusal of stay on injunction restraining peat extraction

Court of Appeal – planning and development – application to stay injunction granted by the High Court - application for the stay comes after arguments on the substantive issues in the appeal have been heard - hearing of the appeal has not concluded in that the Court has decided that it should hear from the Attorney General in relation to certain issues canvassed in the course of the appeal - background to the stay application – previous proceedings - IPC licence application – present proceedings - High Court judgment – orders that respondents cease peat extraction, including all associated and/or ancillary works and the associated and/or ancillary processing of peat on lands - the EPA failed to adequately reason its decision to refuse Harte Peat a licence – appeal - Court’s directions post the hearing - stay application - relevant principles - Okunade – whether there are arguable grounds - Court is not satisfied, at this stage, that the grounds of relief relied on by the respondent are such as to compel this Court to allow its appeal – balance of justice - would be free to extract peat from Area G without planning permission, without any requirement at all to have obtained prior development consent and without any EIA having been conducted by a competent authority- in circumstances where there is a significant basis for thinking that such activity would be a breach of EU law - lack of evidence as to the actual financial impact of the injunction - balance of justice clearly favoured the refusal of the stay - without prejudice to its entitlement to renew that application if that appears appropriate in light of the manner in which the appeal proceeds –