Bula saga may come to an end soon

The Bula mine case, the State's longest running legal battle, could come to an end shortly, if the appellants fail to produce up to £500,000. The Government and Tara Mines, who won the marathon 277-day High Court hearing last year, have sought and been granted security for their costs of the Supreme Court appeal. Legal sources say this could run from £200,000500,000 and will have to be lodged in court by June. It is unclear whether the plaintiffs, who include Bula founder and director, Mr Michael Wymes and Mr Richard Wood, a Cork farmer and businessman, will be able to lodge these monies in court.

The exact amount is due to be decided upon by the Taxing Master next month. If the monies are not lodged in the Supreme Court, this will effectively put a stay on the action. Mr Wymes and his associates decided to appeal the High Court decision to the Supreme Court last year, after they lost the case.

Mr Wymes told The Irish Times he "anticipated" that the case would proceed to the Supreme Court, albeit on reduced grounds of appeal. The current grounds of appeal are very extensive and run to 39 pages.

During a recent Supreme Court hearing on the motion for security of costs, Mr Wymes argued that the plaintiffs were not in a position to furnish security for costs, but that their relative impoverishment was the result of the wrongdoing of the Tara defendants and the State.

He also argued that if the appeal was successful they would be restored to a position of comparative affluence.

Mr Kevin Feeney SC and Mr James Connolly SC, representing Tara Mines and the State, argued that the Supreme Court could take into account the unprecedented length of the trial, with the consequent burden of costs of the defendants, and the fact that at least 25 per cent of the costs of the High Court trial had been awarded against Mr Wymes and Co and would be irrecoverable. Mr Paul Callan SC, for the plaintiffs, submitted that neither the length of the trial in the High Court nor the fact that 25 per cent of the costs had been awarded against the plaintiffs, on the basis of time having been wasted, was a ground for ordering security for costs. He said the length of the trial reflected the importance and the complexity of the issues involved.

Granting the application for security in the Supreme Court, Mr Justice Keane said he would hear counsel as to the manner in which the amount of security should be determined. He said that given the admitted lack of resources by the plaintiffs it follows inevitably that, irrespective of the result of the appeal, the defendants will have to suffer "the clear injustice" of having to pay these costs themselves.

He said the "possibility canvassed by Mr Wymes that in the event of the appeal being successful, the Bula mine, at some stage in the future, will become sufficiently profitable to enable the plaintiffs to discharge these costs, is so remote a contingency - and in any event, it would seem, at odds with the expert evidence adduced on his behalf at the trial - that it must be disregarded."

Just over one year ago, the High Court rejected claims that the Minister for Enterprise and Tara Mines Ltd were responsible for the failure to bring the Bula lead and zinc mine at Nevinstown, Co Meath, into production.

Dismissing the action, Mr Justice Lynch said the case had its origins in "business dealings undertaken in the hopes of arriving at a very large crock of gold" which at the end of the day "turned into a bottomless pit of debt and misery for those who avidly sought the crock of gold."

Mr Justice Lynch said Mr Wymes was a man utterly convinced of the justice of his cause and he also believed that Tara had been intent on destroying him and his colleagues.

He said Mr Wymes was difficult to control and during the course of the "sorry saga" of Bula had alienated those whom he should have sought to get on well with.