The High Court has adjourned a challenge taken by Fine Gael against the Government's failure to call the by-elections in Waterford and Dublin South.
The court adjourned the case until the outcome of a Supreme Court appeal being taken by the State in the Donegal South West case.
Last week the High Court declared there had been an unreasonable delay in moving the writ for the Donegal South West by-election after a challenge by Sinn Féin Senator Pearse Doherty.
The State is appealing that decision. Today, lawyers for the State asked the Supreme Court to give priority to the appeal.
High Court President Mr Justice Nicholas Kearns said the State must be permitted a full and unfettered right of appeal.
He said the appeal included grounds invoking the separation of powers and it would be argued that the court may have exceeded what it was permitted to do.
He said the Doherty case was the first case in which the High Court carried out in such detail an interpretation of the legislation governing the moving of a writ for a by-election by reference to the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights.
He said it would be singularly inappropriate in those circumstances for the High Court to embark on further cases involving the same principles until the Supreme Court has given its decision on the appeal in the Doherty case.
He pointed out that Senator Doherty started his case in July 2010 and did not get a hearing until three months later.
