Council seeks to recoup its Lough Funshinagh legal costs

Roscommon County Council has launched a bid to recoup over €250,000 in legal costs from the State for its long-running High Court battle with Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) over Lough Funshinagh.

Chief Executive Eugene Cummins received the full backing of members at the May meeting of the council for his course of action and said he “expected to recoup all legal costs” incurred by the council in defending its right to carry out emergency flood relief works at Lough Funshinagh.

The Chief Executive also hinted that the council may be prepared to “escalate” its bid to recoup costs if it failsl at national level, but he added that if there was to be any further escalation he would inform members first.

A copy of a letter to the Minister for State at the Office of Public Works, Patrick O’Donovan, was circulated to members at the outset of the meeting, which Mr Cummins said served to highlight the “significant legal challenges” that the council faced in court.

While he acknowledged that Minister Donovan and the OPW had been “nothing but helpful” throughout the whole court process, the Chief Executive said the letter identifies “a number of issues that must be addressed” in the overall context of the powers vested in local authorities.

Among the issues highlighted in the letter was a request to the Minister and the government to “repeal the designation of Lough Funshinagh as a European site that contains turlough habitat type” and a request to amend the Planning Acts and the Local Government Act 2001 to make clear “what freedoms the State considers a local authority should have to deliver an urgent solution to an emergency situation calling for immediate action.”

Other issues seeking a response include a request to the Minister and the government to “provide formal evidence” on whether adaptation, by displacement of home owners, should be considered “a feasible solution” when contemplating any adverse effect on the integrity of a European site, and a request to “amend the protection from legal costs” to ensure that the Irish State is “not more generous than required by European law.”

“This letter has cost us up to a quarter of a million or more,” said Mr. Cummins who added that the council had “gone on a journey because we had to, and it has been tortuous.”

Referring to the role of FIE, Mr. Cummins said “they and their friends, many of them in high places, have made it impossible for us to move forward” and he said it was his mission to accomplish two specific tasks before he departs from his role with Roscommon County Council in September of this year.

“I want to try to recover our costs, and I also want to bring clarity to the situation going forward because, at the moment, from our perspective there is no moving forward which is why we need to go back to the Minister and to the OPW,” he said.

The six members of the Athlone Municipal District of Roscommon County Council gave their full backing to the Chief Executive, with Cllr Laurence Fallon describing the situation at Lough Funshinagh as “a tragedy that has not gone away” and stating that not only were the hands of the executive in the council “tied behind their backs” as a result of the High Court case taken by FIE but the hands of local authorities “in every part of the country are also tied.”

Cllr Fallon said Lough Funshinagh can no longer be classified as an SAC “as everything in it is dead” and he also said “what was once a turlough is no longer a turlough.”

“We have lost the environment, and at the end of the day we have people living around Lough Funshinagh who don’t even know if they will still be living in their homes and farming their lands in 12 months time, and I think it’s only right and proper that the council recoup all their legal costs,” he said.

Cllr Tony Ward said the wildlife and habits were “all gone” from Lough Funshinagh for the past five years and as a result of the outcome of the High Court challenge taken by FIE “no local authority in the country now has emergency powers of any kind.”

“This letter sets out very clearly and succinctly what needs to be done and it highlights the anomalies in both Irish and European law,” said Cllr Donal Kilduff, “and you can escalate it if necessary and pursue it with vigour as it is quite clear that the 1949 Local Works Act is not fit for purpose and does not take into account emergency situations with regard to climate change and other issues.”

Cllr John Keogh said he believed the State “should be picking up the tab” for the legal case, because it was no fault of the Roscommon local authority that there is “a lacuna in the legislation” while Cllr John Naughten said it the “full costs” and all other associated costs of the legal challenge should be recouped by the council.

Other councillors who spoke during the hour-long debate also gave their full backing to the Chief Executive to formally send the letter to Minister O'Donovan on behalf of members, and to take whatever escalation measures that may be necessary in an effort to recoup its legal costs.