The Supreme Court handed down judgments in two appeals heard before television cameras today.
The first related to the eviction of a local authority tenant in Athlone, County Westmeath.
Athlone Town Council sought the eviction of the woman and her children in September 2008 after a series of anti-social behaviour allegations were made against her. Eviction proceedings began in the district court.
The woman went to the High Court seeking permission to challenge the eviction proceedings, claiming section 62 of the Housing Act was incompatible with the European Convention of Human Rights and unconstitutional.
Her action was against the town council, Ireland and the Attorney General. The High Court refused her permission to go ahead with the challenge.
Meanwhile, Athlone Town Council had also sought a separate order from the High Court directing the district court to hear and determine the application for possession of the property. The woman did not oppose the making of that order.
By the time the matter came before the Supreme Court, she had been evicted, but she said she was maintaining a claim for damages against Athlone Town Council for breaching her European Convention Rights.
In the Supreme Court's judgment, Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne asked how the woman could be entitled to such damages in circumstances where she did not oppose the order being made in the proceedings taken by Athlone Town Council.
Ms Justice Dunne said there could be no breach of the woman's rights under the European Convention where she was evicted on foot of a valid warrant of execution.
The judge added that it would have been preferable if the two sets of proceedings had been linked and dealt with at the same time.
She said she could not see any basis how the woman's claim could succeed and she dismissed the appeal.
Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne dismisses a claim for damages by a tenant evicted by Athlone Town Council pic.twitter.com/GAw3lyAGr3
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) December 20, 2017
The second case concerned a Nigerian man who was the subject of a valid deportation order.
He was arrested on 21 October 2016 and detained in Cloverhill Prison.
The case centred on the documents used to justify his detention.
In its decision, again handed down by Ms Justice Elizabeth Dunne, the court found it was not necessary for the document directing the detention of an individual pending deportation, to have the word "warrant" in its heading in order to be valid.
She also found that a certificate provided in an inquiry into the legality of a person's detention could be amended.
The court found a warrant could also be amended, where there was an underlying valid basis, such as a court order, justifying the detention of an individual.
If there was no other underlying valid basis for the detention, other than the document relied on, she said amendments should be confined to trivial errors or mistakes.
The judge also said consideration should be given to the possibility of a short stay to restrain deportation to allow applications for leave to appeal to be made to the Supreme Court, where appropriate and on strict terms.
She dismissed the appeal.
