Preliminary Hearing for Murphy/McGrath -v- Minister for Environment

Hearing was held today to outline details and date of trial (see more at McGarr Solicitors as they are acting for the Plaintiffs). The next hearing is on Wednesday. The outline of the issues to be held was the major concern today as both parties are trying to tie up as much as feasible in order to get the case done as quickly as possible. The arguments are likely to revolve around whether the figures from last year (preliminary ones), figures from March and/or today’s area figures constitute a census under the constitutional provision. This essentially means that the state will argue that there were no actionable census figures available to them until today. This precludes them from their constitutional obligation to call a boundary commission to investigate the issue.

The argument surrounding the figures is apparently dealt with today’s CSO area figures. This then leads to the question of triggering the provision in the constitution for a boundary redraw. Government likely to argue the case that it was practically an impossibility of a redraw in time. More later.

EDIT Below:

The sides will swap their experts’ outline arguments in advance of the next hearing, which is pencilled in Wednesday for 10:00 to take directions from the court with a view to setting the Trail on Thursday morning. The expected duration of the trial is in excess of two days with the possibility of indications from the judge on Friday and a verdict Monday.

It is interesting to see what implication this will or may have on the thinking of An Taoiseach with regard to dissolving the Dail and calling an election. There are rumours building that an announcement is pencilled in for the end of this week, perhaps early next week.

It seems unlikely that he would wish to call it with the possibility of a High Court ruling of unconstitutionality coming down but he could chance it to bully the court. It has happened for the sake of practicality before and perhaps the gamble is that what is done will not be undone.

Certainly the State is likely to rely heavily on the practical aspect as the constitutional limit on the Dail is nearing and an election is equally mandated under the Constitution. This was reflected in the conduct of this morning’s hearing which attempted to forge as much common ground as possible between the two parties.