A ruling from a High Court judge is anticipated next week on an injunction application filed by a widow against developer Greg Kavanagh and his company, Beakonford Ltd. The application accuses them of trespassing on the widow’s Ashford, County Wicklow estate.
Mr Kavanagh has refuted allegations made by Oonagh Stokes that he disrupted the area surrounding her residence, Inchanappa House, linked to his company’s project to construct 98 properties on its adjacent land.
This contentious issue has given rise to three individual legal cases. The initial one launched by Mr Kavanagh and Beakonford against Mrs Stokes, asserting she endeavoured to obtain a €6 million payment from him to ensure the removal of a planning objection towards the development submitted by a third party. Mr Kavanagh alleges that this individual acted on behalf of Ms Stokes.
Despite this pending case, Beakonford received authorisation from An Bord Pleanála to proceed with its 98-house project. Subsequent to this, Mrs Stokes initiated another High Court lawsuit against the board in opposition to its judgement.
Preceding this, Mrs Stokes had already instituted legal proceedings insisting that Mr Kavanagh and his business had interfered with, amongst other things, the drive leading to her property and had torn down a fence demarcating their lands. She further accused Mr Kavanagh of intimidation and trespass.
He refutes these allegations and believes that both of Mrs Stokes’s legal actions are designed to postpone the housing development, and claims she declared it would never progress unless she was included in the plans.
In response to this dispute, Mrs Stokes pursued an injunction to prevent further infringements on her land and private road access.
Following presentations from both parties’ legal representatives early this week, Judge Max Barrett announced he would release his judgement next week.
Earlier this week, after receiving suggestions from both legal councils, Judge Barrett offered to personally inspect the site at Inchanappa, in the dispute relating to access to a telecommunications tower and water tank positioned on land near both the Stokes and Beakonford properties. The land hosting the tower is owned by a company under Mrs Stokes’s possession.
After it was resolved that footage could be presented in court depicting the proposed entrance ways to the mast, recorded by both parties, a physical inspection by the judge became unnecessary. On Tuesday, the tapes were viewed in court and it was established that Mr Kavanagh was willing to lay hardcore stones to make the route he favoured more accessible.
On the other hand, the Stokes party suggested a different path which, according to the Kavanagh group, would be costlier to transform into hardcore.
After a subsequent debate and responses from Paul Fogarty BL, law representative for Kavanagh/Beakonford, and Micheál O’Connell SC, legal counsel for Mrs Stokes, the magistrate announced his intention to issue a written decree regarding the injunction request the following Tuesday.