galwaywednesdaymarket.org
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Market rights
We are relying upon our public right to trade, relying upon the fact that the Wednesday market
is a franchise market over which a market right exists. The market right was granted by George
II to the Mayor of Galway in 1730. Reports from 1889 describe the Wednesday market, and tolls
collected for the Crown.
The Casual Trading Act (1995) was written to modernise regulation of the markets, and to take over
from the older system of collecting tolls and levies from traders. There is a ten year window written
into the Casual Trading Act to allow these ancient rights to be exercised (Section 7, paragraph 4).
If these rights are not exercised within ten years of the Casual Tradin Act being passed as law, the
market rights are automatically extinguished. The deadline was 30 April 2006.
The machinery for extinguishing a market right is laid out in Section 8 of the Casual Trading Act,
and involves the City Council writing to inform all interested parties of their intention to extinguish
the right, the publication of notices in at least two newspapers and if there are no objections from
the public, the council must then pass an order extinguishing the market right. We believe this was never
carried out.
A number of traders set up stalls by St. Nicholas's Church on Wednesday 26th April 2006 in order to
maintain these rights. The traders were witnessed by the Community Warden that day.
We have written to the City Council to ask for evidence that they extinguished the rights, prior to
the traders setting up on 26 April 2006.
No evidence has been produced by the City Council to show that the market right was extinguished, as
is required by Section 8, paragraph (4) of The Casual Trdaing Act (1995) prior to the traders setting
up stall on 26 April 2006.
We believe that the market right remains active to this day and are trading in good faith that the
right still exists.
Legal Opinion
The judgement of Mr. Justice Aindrias î Caoimh delivered 22 February 2002 in The High Court in the
case of Simmonds v Cork County Council determined that
"the right of a member of the public to trade at a franchise market is in the nature of a
proprietary right, that the designation of an area for casual trading is not to be considered
as synonymous with the creation of a market and that the right to regulate a market under one
statutory code does not entitle the exercise of such a power to undermine a right to trade at
a franchise market in the absence of clear statutory entitlement."
He continued " The power to regulate casual trading may not extend to defeat the proprietary
rights of members of the public in the absence of clear statutory entitlement."
Links
http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IEHC/2002/17.html
http://www.irishmarketrights.org/