Skellig Michael boat trips can resume, court rules
The High Court has given the go-ahead for boat trips to Skellig Michael to resume.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons granted an application by the Office of Public Works (OPW) to lift an automatic suspension on landing at the Unesco heritage site and former monastic island, which was also used as a film location for the Star Wars movies, The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi.
Advertisement
The order will allow the OPW to enter into a legally binding contract with each of 15 boat operators who were successful in the public competition for permits to land on the island off the Kerry coast. The landing season runs from mid-May to the end of September each year.
Those landing permits were automatically suspended when two unsuccessful bidders brought a High Court challenge to the decision. The OPW then had to apply to the court asking that the stay be lifted pending hearing of the substantive challenge.
The unsuccessful bidders, Atlantic Endeavour Ltd and SMBT Ltd, trading as Skellig Michael Boat Trips, disagreed with the OPW interpretation of the legal effect of the automatic suspension.
They contended that there are a number of mechanisms open whereby landing permits might legitimately be granted to the successful tenderers for the balance of the 2025 season, while preserving their own right to challenge the allocation of landing permits for the 2026 and subsequent seasons.
Advertisement
Mr Justice Simons heard the application to lift the suspension this week and on Thursday ordered that it be lifted.
He said the practical effect of this order is that it will now be legally permissible for the OPW to issue landing permits to the 15 successful tenderers for the balance of the 2025 season.
This will allow for the commencement of passenger landings at Skellig Michael, or Sceilg Mhichíl in Irish.
He said his judgment entails no finding whatsoever on whether the outcome of the tender process allows the OPW to confine the right to land passengers on Sceilg Mhichíl to the 15 successful tenderers for a five-year period.
Advertisement
The proper interpretation of the request for tender and associated documentation, and the legal consequences of the tender process, remain open for debate at the trial of the action, he said.
The judgment, he said "goes no further" than deciding that the execution of concession contracts does not result in the crystallisation of a contractual right on the part of the successful tenderers to exclusive landing rights for the 2026 and subsequent seasons.
He said the significance of this finding is that the unsuccessful tenderers are not relegated to a claim for certain damages in respect of the 2026 and subsequent seasons.
The only right which the OPW seeks to translate into a concluded contract, prior to the determination of the full High Court challenge, is confined to the 2025 landing season,he said.
He said he was listing the substantive action for the alleged breaches of the public procurement legislation in July.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Times
9 hours ago
- Times
Migrants face restrictions on social housing
A new immigration clampdown will limit access to social housing to people with strong, long-term connections to Ireland, and emergency homeless accommodation will also be restricted. Under plans due to go to cabinet in the next fortnight, social housing applicants must be lawfully and habitually resident in Ireland, meaning they must have close ties with the state, have been living in Ireland for some time and intend to stay for the foreseeable future. The government first floated the suggestions in a proposed law early last year, but later dropped the plans. It is understood that, after extensive legal advice in recent months, the measures are back on the table. The rules could spark controversy because they are likely to lead to an increase in non-Irish nationals being excluded from housing and homeless lists. Ministers will be told that the law is needed to eliminate 'ambiguity' over existing rules for non-Irish nationals who want to apply for social housing at a time of intense public and political scrutiny over housing waiting lists. Alongside the new rules, ministers are also due to approve plans to introduce similar eligibility criteria for access to homeless accommodation. This will mean that local authorities will not be required to assess households for homeless supports unless they are legally and habitually resident in the state. Local authorities currently do not have a legal basis to refuse accommodation based on legal or habitual residence. • Ministerial row stalls use of empty offices to house asylum seekers The issue of immigration and its effect on the homeless figures was previously raised by Simon Harris, the tanaiste, in an interview with The Sunday Times. At the time, the Fine Gael leader said: 'People understand the fact that homelessness numbers are heavily impacted by the fact we are seeing many people seek protection in our country, seek asylum in our country and many people come from abroad hoping to have a new future in Ireland and immigration. It has many, many pluses, but it has had a challenge there.' The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission previously raised concerns about any move to change social housing eligibility, saying it could have a 'discriminatory and disproportionate impact on ethnic minority communities, and on the most vulnerable groups in our society'. It added that applying the new habitual residence condition to social housing assistance was likely to result in criticism of Ireland by human rights monitoring bodies. Under further changes due to be signed off, there will be an independent appeals mechanism for people who feel they have been unfairly excluded from social housing eligibility. Changes to the criteria for getting homeless accommodation will be made by way of an amendment to the Housing Act 1988, which sets out what assistance can be offered by local authorities in terms of homelessness. It comes after homeless figures again reached another record high. Figures released last week by the Department of Housing show that 15,747 people were living in emergency accommodation in May, an increase of 167 people on those recorded as homeless in April. The total includes 4,844 children. At present, asylum seekers are not entitled to housing support or emergency beds. However, if an asylum seeker is granted leave to remain and has nowhere to stay, and potentially leaves direct provision, they will show up on official homeless figures. The homeless figures for May show that 3,031 adults in emergency accommodation, or 28 per cent of the overall adults, were not citizens of the European Economic Area. Separately, it has emerged that the planned delivery of almost 3,000 social homes has been delayed over value-for-money concerns. The homes were due to be built in Dublin, Wicklow, Kildare and Sligo by a consortium under the public-private partnership model. The Department of Housing said this weekend the decision 'reflects a careful consideration of the costs and taxpayer funding'.
Times
9 hours ago
- Times
Banks criticised for failing SMEs with automated loan rejections
Banks are failing small firms and have created a 'void' in their services by ditching relationship managers and relying on automation to manage loan applications, according to the state body Credit Review. In a stinging report published last week, Credit Review also said that banks needed to reinvest in human expertise to offset the shrinking availability of credit in the market and compensate for tighter lending criteria in recent years. 'Bank balance sheets have shrunk and shrunk since the financial crisis but the question now is what's actually happening between banks and borrowers,' said Catherine Collins, head of the service and author of the report. 'For those it works for, automation is great. The problem we see is that for those with a more complicated business structure or model, they need some human interaction.' The report said that in many cases that came before Credit Review, which judges credit appeals brought by small businesses to loan rejections, 'considerable expertise' was required to find the appropriate solution for borrowers but banks were shifting that burden on to customers. 'There is a cost to the SME borrower of acquiring that expertise that has now been passed across by the bank who are no longer providing it to certain segments of the SME market (typically smaller borrowers),' the report said. It noted that credit advanced to non-property SMEs had fallen by 18 per cent from its pre-Covid level, due in part to the exits of Ulster Bank and KBC and the resulting lack of competition in the market. But the proportion of small businesses applying for finance each year had also fallen from more than one in three to just one in five. The lack of credit flow to indigenous small businesses has been flagged by Department of Finance officials as a potential problem for maintaining domestic demand in an economy facing grave risks from disruption in international trade and investment. Credit Review blamed the decline in the market on shortcomings in the credit application process, especially in terms of accessing expertise, how banks communicate, timeliness and flexibility. 'The responses that I see issued on bank credit decline letters remain generic, high level and unhelpful to many of the borrowers using our services,' Collins wrote. The average loan decision turnaround time of 24 days was also inhibiting small businesses from seeking bank finance, Collins said. The regulatory requirement for SME lenders is 15 days. The lack of standardisation between banks and the difficulty of switching from one to another was also a problem that limited competition and choice, she said. As a result, many businesses were now turning to alternative sources of credit from non-bank debt providers, such as invoice discounters or crowdfunders, which were in some cases subject to different regulatory requirements to banks. This segment of lenders has grown to make up more than a third of the market. Just under 60 per cent of the appeals brought to Credit Review since it was established by the Department of Finance in 2010 have been upheld. But Collins said not enough businesses were using its services, which can help firms to navigate the tricky process of accessing bank finance. 'SMEs are tricky, they require judgment calls,' she said. 'At the end of the day, you need to talk to someone. The pain is worth the gain.'
Times
9 hours ago
- Times
Just how rich is Leinster Rugby — and should it win more?
When the final whistle blew in Croke Park last Saturday, crowning Leinster as the United Rugby Championship winners in front of 46,000 fans, the natural celebration was palpably tinged with relief. The team had developed a frustrating habit of falling short at critical moments, losing three European finals in a row in 2022, 2023 and last year to French opposition. There was a similar trend in the United Rugby Championship. It led Donncha O'Callaghan, the former Munster and Ireland player, to remark — perhaps mischievously — that 'Leinster are up there with the national children's hospital, in terms of return on investment'. Throughout the season, commentators in England and France liberally attributed budgets to the club that backed up his assessment. Ordinarily Irish rugby treats finances like the third secret of Fatima. Yet Shane Nolan, chief executive of Leinster Rugby, is a new broom at the club. A former Google Ireland executive, he is somewhat exasperated by the misinformation circulating around the club's finances. According to Nolan, Leinster's revenue falls into three buckets, very broadly speaking: ticket sales, commercial revenue and the Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU). 'Typically we'd be running on about €8 million or €9 million of ticketing revenue, but that'll be above €10 million this year,' he said, which was a consequence of being able to sell more tickets at the Aviva Stadium than the RDS Arena. In previous seasons the club attracted 15,000 for a normal league match in the RDS, but that has risen to 18,000 or so in Lansdowne Road. Season ticket sales surged from 12,000 in previous seasons to 15,000 this season, a 25 per cent increase. While they still haven't counted the revenue from the past three weeks, which included a quarter-final, semi-final and final — about 25 per cent of the gate from which goes to Leinster — it likely means the club has hit a record for ticket revenue this year. Sponsorship and commercial income — from jersey sponsorship, match-day hoardings, merchandising and other sources — grew to about €10 million this year, which brings the province's self-generated revenue for last season to about €20 million. The third source of money is where things get a little complicated. The IRFU distributes revenue from the Six Nations, television contracts and competition income from the URC and the European Rugby Champions Cup. It provides support in a complicated array of direct grants and other supports, and all get treated differently by the provinces for accounting purposes, making comparisons difficult. Broadly speaking, the value of total IRFU supports, according to sources familiar with the matter, works out at between €11 million and €12 million annually for each of the provinces. This brings Leinster's budget this year to slightly more than €30 million. Munster, for example, declared this month that its revenues were up last year from €18 million to €20 million, though it is not clear how much of that was from ticket sales and commercial revenue, and how much of the IRFU's financial supports were included in that figure. The all-in figure for Munster is likely to be higher, though still short of Leinster's. Ulster Rugby is the only club that publishes a set of financial accounts, These date back to 2023, when the province had income of £12 million and expenditure of £12.9 million, running a loss of about £900,000. That figure was made up of £4.6 million in grants, £2.7 million in sponsorship and £3 million in match-day income. There is a significant sum of IRFU support not reflected in those accounts, meaning that for comparison purposes Ulster's annual budget is likely higher than that. • Ulster have the stadium and the fanbase… where is the talent? Connacht doesn't publish financial accounts but does disclose figures at its annual meetings. According to sources familiar with those figures, the province earns somewhere between €5 million and €6 million in self-generated commercial revenues, including ticketing, sponsorship and other sources combined. Adding the rough figure of €11 million in IRFU supports gives Connacht a budget of about €16 million. Even allowing for the difficulty of comparing apples with oranges, Leinster is clearly the healthiest Irish province, yet Nolan is quick to point out that some of the chatter about it being 'the best resourced club in the world' is wildly off base, especially compared with clubs in France and Japan. A recent report by the French Professional Championship Control Commission, which oversees the finances of its clubs in the Top 14 and the Pro D2, shows that many French clubs have substantially bigger budgets than Leinster. That report put Toulouse's budget at €62.5 million, while Stade Francais had €46.1 million, Toulon €42.3 million, and La Rochelle and Bordeaux Bègles €40.8 million each. Three of the last four winners of the European Rugby Champions Cup — two of them Leinster's conquerors — have budgets at least a third bigger than Leinster's. An independent review carried out in England in September last year showed that in the 2022-23 season, the best-funded clubs were Harlequins and Saracens, which had budgets of £26.8 million and £23.2 million respectively. Northampton, which beat Leinster this season in the semi-finals of the European Rugby Champions Cup, had a budget of £21.9 million. But a budget is only half the story — what really matters is how the clubs spend their money, and that has been a big part of the debate around Leinster's last four years. A great deal of the club's budget is spent on the ordinary costs of running a professional rugby team, and several million more is spent on grassroots rugby throughout the province. Yet in truth, only one number matters at Leinster: what is spent on players. The root of the perception is that Leinster has an unfair and disproportionate advantage over not just its Irish peers but also its French and English rivals. That stems from the IRFU central contracting structure, which takes a large chunk of the cost of star players off a province's balance sheet and into the national team budget. Were the number of central contracts equally distributed, that perhaps would not be an issue, but Leinster has 11 central contracts while the other provinces only have three between them. Ulster has none. For 11 of its first-team players, Leinster must pay only 30 per cent of their wages — though this will rise to 40 per cent next year. It allows Leinster, the critics say, to go out and boost its squad with superstars of the game, including New Zealand's Jordie Barrett, South Africa's RG Snyman and the French prop Rabah Slimani. This year it will welcome another galactico, Rieko Ioane. Leinster fans argue that the club has less control over centrally contracted players, causing huge disruptions around Six Nations time. This summer, the club will have about two dozen players away on international duty with Ireland and the Lions. Fans of provincial rivals argue that this is a high-class problem, especially with the kind of money that can buy in world-class players to smooth over those bumps. So just how big a budget for player salaries does Leinster have, when you include the IRFU contribution? In May this year The Daily Telegraph newspaper claimed that 'one informed source proposed a figure as high as €17 million'. Nolan refused to be drawn on the precise value of the playing budget for Leinster, yet based on conversations with several people familiar with the matter, the club's total salary bill is somewhere north of €12 million. That is considerably higher than for Leinster's provincial peers. Ulster's playing bill is said to be about £6.5 million, which has been significantly trimmed down from £7.5 million in previous seasons. Munster has also been trimming its wages, and according to informed sources its total bill today is only slightly higher than Ulster's. Some figures for Connacht have put its playing bill at between €5 million and €6 million. Meanwhile, English clubs have to operate within a salary cap of £6.4 million, though they are allowed some freedom to spend on marquee players, up to £7.8 million. That independent review of English clubs showed that the entire wage bill for England's top three clubs was quite high — Harlequins (£15.1 million), Saracens (£14.9 million) and Bath (£14.8 million), but that included every member of staff at the club. A report by the Professional Championship Control Commission this year put the player bill for Toulouse at €13.4 million, La Rochelle had €12.3 million, Racing 92 €12.1 million and Bordeaux Bègles €11 million. Leinster clearly sits at the top table, far above its provincial rivals, and at least on a par with the teams in France that it regards as its true rivals. Moreover, its financial wherewithal is expected to grow in the coming years, as the capacity of a redeveloped RDS grows to nearly 21,000. Nolan believes the number of season tickets, one of the main bedrocks of any sports team's finances, can grow. 'We still have massive upside, I think,' he said. 'We're moving into a 21,000-seater stadium and we want that to be sold out every match.' He points to Leinster's arch nemesis, La Rochelle. 'They have a 16,000-seater stadium and a seven-year waiting list for a season ticket. It's the hottest ticket in town and that's what we want the RDS to be for us. There is clearly demand we can tap into.' Nolan also believes there is room to grow the commercial and sponsorship revenue significantly. John Feehan, former chief executive of the Six Nations, now boss of Basketball Ireland, does not buy into the 'expensive failure' narrative. 'Fans have incredible expectations, but it doesn't matter how much money you've got, you can't just expect to win everything in sight,' he said. 'The reality is that but for a dropkick being a foot or two closer to the goals, or a penalty being taken, Leinster could have two more European cups. 'Money doesn't guarantee success — all it guarantees is to get to the place where you should be at least contending.' James Downey, a former professional rugby player turned agent, who has turned out in Ireland, England and Italy, says a whole season cannot be defined by a single game, no matter how good or bad. 'Leinster still won 26 games, lost two games in the URC and had one bad game against Northampton,' he said. 'You've got 12 Irish Lions and the majority are Leinster players. Is it a success? I think it is.'Yet Leinster fans and players want one thing above all else: that fifth European star on their jersey. 'If they'd lost the URC and won Europe, everyone would be much happier,' Downey said. 'Winning is a habit, and so is losing. For a lot of these players, they won't have won anything with Leinster before. This year has got to be a success in terms of getting over that line and getting that trophy.' Munster legend O'Callaghan's characterisation sticks in the craw for many Leinster fans precisely because it is rooted in an undeniable truth. The national children's hospital is slated to open in 2026, which will give Leinster one more crack at shaking off those comparisons by landing European success.
