High Court refuses to issue injunction allowing coursing to restart in lockdown

THE Irish Coursing Club (ICC) has failed to secure a High Court injunction that would have allowed coursing to resume during the Covid19 restrictions.

Ms Justice Niamh Hyland said yesterday she was not satisfied to grant the ICC an injunction which would have seen coursing restart.

That order would have remained pending the final outcome of judicial proceedings brought by the ICC after the Government delisted coursing as a permitted activity during the current Level 5 restrictions.

Ms Justice Hyland accepted that at least some of the grounds advanced by the ICC were “sufficiently strong”.

These included that Health Minister Stephen Donnelly was obliged to consult other ministers before deciding to exclude coursing from a list of permitted sports.

However, she said the court lacked the jurisdiction to grant what would be a mandatory injunction directing the minister to allow coursing resume.

The granting of an injunction would be effectively asking the Health Minister to ignore matters relating to the risk of Covid19,

and act outside his powers, she said.

The injunction would “usurp the exclusive function of the Oireachtas”, in circumstances where the court has no public health qualifications or public health advices available to it, and where the court“is not democratically elected”.

Even if the court had such a power, the balance of convenience and the risk of injustice dictates that the court should not grant the injunction, she said.

The court had put sufficient weight on the severity of the current Covid-19 situation and the need for the current regime to be left “undisturbed” in circumstances where the entire Cabinet took a decision that only the sports identified should be permitted to go ahead.

The judge further added that she had to take into account the State’s expert medical evidence regarding the risk involved to public health if coursing was allowed to resume

The court accepted evidence that the ICC has made strenuous efforts to be Covid19 compliant and possible financial losses suffered by breeders and trainers due to the cancellation of meetings.