UK Supreme Court dismisses appeal over Northern Ireland underwater gas storage proposal – JURIST
The UK Supreme Court on Friday refused to hear an appeal submitted by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) regarding the Islandmagee Gas Cavern Project. The case, which concerns DAERA’s grant of a marine construction license to install a five hundred million cubic meter gas cavern storage facility under Larne Lough in Country Antrim, was first brought by the No Gas Caverns and Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland.
The Court of Appeal quashed the permission for the marine license in June. It ruled that then-DAERA Minister Edwin Poots should not have granted the license unilaterally and that the matter should have been referred to Northern Ireland’s Executive Committee for cross-party approval under sections 20 and 28A of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Referring to paragraph 19 of Strand One of the Belfast Agreement, the court also acknowledged the significant changes to the constitutional arrangements in Northern Ireland as a result of the Northern Ireland (St Andrews Agreement) Act 2006 and the Executive Committee (Functions) Act (Northern Ireland) 2020.
The appeal to the Supreme Court focused on the definition of “cross-cutting, significant and controversial” matters that require referral to the Executive Committee. DAERA Minister Andrew Muir contemplated in a Written Ministerial Statement in July that the department planned to bring the case to the Supreme Court because the Court of Appeal’s judgment raises constitutional issues that can significantly impact decision-making by individual ministers.
No Gas Caverns responded to Muir’s statement:
This decision to take this case to the Supreme Court stands in stark contrast to the Alliance Party’s, recent manifesto, which stated a commitment to end oil and gas extraction and the Minister himself has said: “moving away from fossil fuels must be our priority as we face into the climate crisis”. So we are aghast at why he wishes to take this dirty fossil fuel project back to court.
No Gas Caverns had alleged that the underground gas storage can create a “dead zone” where no plants or animals can survive due to the poisonous brine extracted to make caverns. They also argued that the project conflicted with a climate policy directed at net zero by 2050 under the Climate Change Act (Northern Ireland) 2022.
