O'Neill v The Commissioner of An Garda Siochana & Ors (Approved)

1.������ On 11th September, 2020 I gave judgment on a motion on behalf of the plaintiff, a Garda Superintendent who was suspended on pay, for a number of reliefs but principally for an interlocutory injunction requiring the Garda Commissioner to lift his suspension.� O�Neill v. Commissioner of An Garda S�och�na [2020] IEHC 448 .

2.������ For the reasons set out, I refused all reliefs.� As the judgment was delivered electronically, the parties made their submissions in relation to costs in writing.�� The defendants submit that the plaintiff should be ordered to pay their costs.�� The plaintiff submits that the costs should be reserved to the trial judge, alternatively that there should be a stay on any order for costs pending the final disposal of the action.

3.������ Counsel for the plaintiff rely on what is asserted to be �� a surviving general rule, (post the 2008 amendment of Order 99), that the costs of an interlocutory injunction be reserved to the trial judge� �.� There is no such rule.� Nor was there ever such a rule.� It is true that for many years the practice was that the costs of many interlocutory applications, including applications for interlocutory injunctions, would be reserved to the trial judge but as Peart J. long ago observed those days are long gone.

4.������ The dawn of the modern enlightenment was the Rules of the Superior Courts (Commercial Proceedings), 2004 which inserted O. 63A into the Rules of the Superior Courts.�� O. 63A, r. 30 provided that in the case of commercial proceedings:-

��������� �Upon the determination of any interlocutory application by a Judge, the Judge shall make an award of costs save where it is not possible justly to adjudicate upon liability for costs on the basis of the interlocutory application.�