EU1 Marriage right in Ireland

Does anyone out there have any current news regarding the controvertial EU1 marriage right in Ireland? I'm an EU citizen and my hustand, a non EU. We got married in Oct, 2006 and applied for residence permit since 2006 on which we received a negative response over 6months ago. We were surprised with this decision . We did not know what to do next and had hope that this would be resolved soon expecially when my solicitor had adviced that there was no need to take any legal action as a few other cases were already busy in court. I don't know what to think about this if we have taken a good desicion. We seek help from anyone who's in similar situation or knowledgeable about what is current in this issue or what we should do next. We are obviously going crazy with this delay and suspension of life to families by the Irish authority.

The government is doing their best to keep the strong cases out of the courts by offering them out of court settlements...We went to the High Court and we were offered a settlement as well, and as per the advice of our solicitors we decided to take it as the government offered us pretty much everything we had asked for (5 yr residency and full legal expenses) and our claim for compensation is still going ahead to open courts, though as a separate case.
We had also applied for E.U1 in october 2006 and refused in May2007.
The Non E.U spouse (me) was legally in Ireland on a spouse visa when we applied.
I cannot tell you what to do as that is your solicitor's prerogative, but if you want the name of our solicitor do send me a pm.
Regards.

I hate to say this but my experience with Irish solicitors is that they will advise you to do what makes them work the least and gets them the most money...not necessarily whats in your best interest.