Recent cases published on the Courts website are listed below.
Criminal Law
DPP (at the suit of Garda Diarmaid Loughnane) v Davis, Richard
11/2/2026 No. 2025 132 SS [2026] IEHC 104
Criminal law - Case stated - Questions posed - Drug offences - Unlawful search procedures - Evidence - Acquittal - Appellant appealing by way of case stated - Whether the District Judge was correct in law to acquit the respondent - Search warrant - Whether a Gardaí officer exceeded authority during a drug search execution - Interpretation of the phrase "accompanied by" in s. 26(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977 - Decision to acquit the respondent will stand - Appeal dismissed
DPP (at the suit of Garda Diarmaid Loughnane) v Davis, Richard
People (DPP) v A (N)
13/2/2026 No. 151/2022 [2026] IECA 23
Criminal law - Offence of murder - Appeal against conviction - Admissibility of evidence - CCTV footage of attack - Appellant's children witnessed the attack - Specialist interviews conducted with the children - Appellant appealing on the ground that the trial judge erred in law in acceding to the respondent's application to allow the DVDs of the specialist interviews to be adduced as evidence - Criminal Evidence Act 1992 - Appellant submits the evidence should have been given by a live video link as the criteria for the admission of the DVDs under the 1992 Act, as amended were not met - Whether the children were victims - Emotional harm - Victims’ Rights Directive 2012/29/EU - Appeal dismissed
People (DPP) v H (G)
20/2/2026 No. 286/2024 [2026] IECA 24
Criminal law - Sentencing - Historic offences of indecent assault against family members - Appellant sentenced to 8 years' imprisonment - Appeal against sentence - Judge erred in fixing a headline sentence which was too high - Judge failed to have any or any adequate regard for the principles of totality and proportionality - Judge failed to have adequate regard for the mitigating factors present - Submissions - Appeal allowed - Court quashes the sentence imposed - Appellant re-sentenced
Defamation
Guerin, James v O'Doherty, Gemma
26/3/2026 No. 2025/159 [2026] IECA 48
Defamation - Online and print publications - Plaintiff brought proceedings against the defendant - Jury trial - Retrial directed - Strike out application - Defendant issued a motion seeking an order striking out the proceedings on the grounds that they are alleged to be malicious, vexatious, an abuse of process a grave attack on press freedom - Motion dismissed - Appeal - Whether the defamation claims were clearly bound to fail - Whether they constituted an abuse of the court's process - Defences - Use of Artificial Intelligence in proceedings - Submissions - AI hallucinations - References to authorities which did not exist - Whether issues of absolute privilege and public interest must be decided by a jury - Ss. 17 and 26 of the Defamation Act 2009 - Court finds the defendant failed to establish that the pursuit of the claim amounted to an abuse of the process of the Court - Appeal dismissed
Guerin, James v O'Doherty, Gemma
Education
M [M] v A University
3/2/2026 No. 2024 3929 P [2026] IEHC 57
Education - Academic regulations - Plaintiff is a student at the defendant university - Difficulties in completing her second year modules - Special grades awarded in respect of modules she had not passed - Exceptional circumstances - Imposition of academic plan - Remediation exams - Dispute - Damage and loss of opportunity - Plaintiff seeking declaratory reliefs - Correct interpretation and deployment of the university's academic regulations which governed the plaintiff's agreement with the university - Whether the plaintiff's treatment after she was awarded special grades was lawful - Whether the plaintiff's rights were breached -Court finds no evidence of any breach of the plaintiff’s rights - Reliefs refused
Family Law
C [A] v C [D], in the matter of an application for access pursuant to Section 11B of the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964 [as amended]
19/2/2026 No. 2025 225 M [2026] IEHC 98
Family law - Interim access order - Applicant is not genetically connected to the child - Professional report - Child's view - S. 11B of the Guardianship of Infants Act 1964 - Statutory interpretation of statutory requirements - Whether s. 11B requires a court to have a professional report on the child's views before making an order for interim access - Best interests of the child - Court does not consider that s. 11B of the 1964 Act means that before a court can consider an application for access that there must be a professional report conveying the "views of the child"
Medical Negligence
Afolabi, Maria v Southdoc Services Ltd and Rachel Finnegan
11/2/2026 No. 2021 5972 P [2026] IEHC 110
Medical negligence - Duty of care - Failure to diagnose - General practitioner - Out of hours medical service - Physical examination - Diagnosis of gastroenteritis - Hospital referral letter - Deterioration in plaintiff's condition - Delay in referral to hospital - Plaintiff diagnosed with perforated appendix - Medical complications - Whether the general practitioner's initial diagnosis of gastroenteritis instead of appendicitis was reasonable - Whether the delay in referring the patient to hospital led to further complications - Evidence - Expert testimonies - Clinical notes - Court finds the primary diagnosis of gastroenteritis was reasonable - No clinical negligence identified on the part of the defendants - Plaintiff's claim dismissed
Afolabi, Maria v Southdoc Services Ltd and Rachel Finnegan
Mental Health
H v Mental Health Tribunal, and the Attorney General, the Minister for Health and the Mental Health Commission (notice parties)
12/2/2026 No. 2023/176 [2026] IECA 12
Mental health - Patient - Involuntary admission order - Revocation - Whether an appeal to the Circuit Court is available to a patient in circumstances where the relevant admission order has been revoked and the patient discharged - Scope of Tribunal review and Circuit Court appeal - Whether there is a detention order for the Circuit Court to review - Ss. 18, 19, and 28 of the Mental Health Act 2001 - Court finds the only appeal permissible under section 19(1) of the 2001 Act is against an order affirming a detention order, the scope of any such appeal is confined to the question of whether or not (at the time the hearing of the appeal) the person concerned was suffering from a mental disorder within the meaning of the 2001 Act
Pensions
Browne, Padraig v Mayo County Council and Padraig Walsh
12/1/2026 No. 2020 6775 P [2026] IEHC 4
Pensions - Pension entitlements - Calculation - Overtime payments - Plaintiff claiming that the overtime payments made to him should be reckoned for the purpose of calculating his pension entitlements - Ministerial Circular - Whether the overtime work fulfilled the criteria in the Circular - Interpretation - Complaint previously made to pensions ombudsman - Whether the plaintiff was estopped from re-agitating the question of his pension entitlements - Employment contract - Whether it had been compulsory for the plaintiff to perform a minimum number of hours of overtime work per week - Court held the plaintiff was entitled to be paid the higher pension - Relief granted
Browne, Padraig v Mayo County Council and Padraig Walsh
Personal Injuries
Sheehan, Colette v Beamish, Graham
16/2/2026 No. 2022 1467 P [2026] IEHC 87
Personal injuries - Damages claim - Plaintiff seeks damages arising out of a road traffic accident - Assessment of damages - Post-concussion syndrome - Migraine symptoms - Back injury - Abrupt onset of menopause as a result of trauma - Loss of earnings - Curtailed career advancement - Whether damages can be awarded for post-concussion syndrome with no evidence of a head injury - Qualifying injuries - Novel injuries - Evidence - Application of Personal Injuries Guidelines - Damages awarded to the plaintiff in the sum of €218,164.00
Sheehan, Colette v Beamish, Graham
Walsh, Sharon v Juniper Orthodontics Limited
26/2/2026 No. 2025 5053 P [2026] IEHC 99
Personal injuries - Stairs - Vacuum cleaner hose - Trip and fall - Ankle injury - Plaintiff suing the defendant as her employer for damages in negligence in respect of the personal injuries and financial losses suffered by her as a result of the accident - Duty of care - Routine cleaning tasks - Whether employer breached its duty of by having an unsafe system of work - Failure to implement adequate safety measures - Evidence - Engineering evidence - Court finds no negligence on the part of the defendant as either the employer of the plaintiff, or as occupier of the premises - Plaintiff's action dismissed
Walsh, Sharon v Juniper Orthodontics Limited
Planning and Development
Moss, Susan, Anne Hoek, and ors v An Coimisiun Pleanala and Lightsource Renewable Energy Ireland Ltd (notice party)
10/2/2026 No. 2025 1080 JR [2026] IEHC 62
Planning and development - Judicial review - Solar energy development - Grant of planning permission - Challenge - Environmental impact assessment - Internal access tracks - Whether the tracks within a solar farm development qualify as "roads" requiring mandatory EIA - Claims of procedural unfairness in the planning process - Validity of planning application documentation - Whether public and statutory procedural requirements were satisfied - Proceedings dismissed - Court finds the applicants have failed to show how the application documentation was insufficient - Applicants failed to demonstrate evidentially that the access tracks were roads within the EIA directive - Proceedings dismissed
Practice and Procedure
Maguire, Eamon v PSW Sales and Logistics Ltd and ors
18/2/2026 No. 2021 6729 P [2026] IEHC 81
Practice and procedure - Personal injury summons - Application set aside renewal of summons - Plaintiff's failure to serve the proceedings within the prescribed time Special circumstances - Alleged lack of action by the plaintiff's former solicitor - Whether the delays and actions by the former solicitor met the threshold for renewing a summons - Significant lapse of time between an accident and the trial of the action - Interests of justice - Risk of prejudice to the defendants - Order renewing the personal injury summons set aside
Maguire, Eamon v PSW Sales and Logistics Ltd and ors
Pisarski, Artur v Kepak Cork Unlimited Company
23/2/2026 No. 2025 287 CA [2026] IEHC 94
Practice and procedure - Personal injuries - Appeal by the defendant from a refusal in the Circuit Court to set aside the renewal of a personal injury summons - Personal injury summons issued four years prior but never served - Plaintiff's former solicitor, on the advice of counsel, believed the case was weak on liability - Plaintiff unaware the case was not being progressed - Whether plaintiff's mistaken belief amounted to special circumstances - Lapse of time - Prejudice - Defendant's application granted
Pisarski, Artur v Kepak Cork Unlimited Company
Procurement
Kerrigan Sheanon Newman Unlimited Company v Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland and Abtran Unlimited Company (notice party)
12/2/2026 No. 2024 882 JR [2026] IEHC 70
Procurement - Judicial review application - Public contract - Provision of management services - Tenders - Tender documents - Interpretation of documents - Award of contract - Abnormally low price - Methodology claim - Pricing claim - Whether the respondent had erred in its interpretation of the tender documents and accepted a tender which proposed a methodology which differed from that prescribed in the tender documents - Whether the respondent had erred in concluding that the winning bid was not abnormally low - Transparency and clarity of procurement processes - Council Directive 2014/24/EU - Application for relief by way of judicial review refused
Coverage: All reserved written judgments published by the Courts Service are indexed on the Library Catalogue where they can be searched by party name, judge, subject, keyword and other filters. Members may log in to the catalogue with their solicitor number and library PIN, available by emailing libraryenquire@lawsociety.ie