One might have thought Dublin airport would be considered strategic infrastructure. Primary global connection point on the island, 32 million passengers a year, fifth busiest gateway from Europe to North America. It’s a key plank in the pitch to multinationals and their mobile international workforces. It’s also the bedrock of the tourism industry.
Yet from a planning point of view, Dublin airport appears to have the same strategic standing as a three-bed semi-detached house in Portmarnock.
This has become clear in the row over the cap on the number of passengers that can go through the airport, currently 32 million. The airport has already hit the cap and it seems the ceiling will stay until Fingal county council decides on the operator DAA’s 7,000-page application for infrastructure improvements.
With an appeal to An Bord Pleanala and a judicial review, Dublin could be in a holding pattern for three years.
It should not be like this. Since 2007 critical national infrastructure projects, including airports, are supposed to bypass local councils and go straight to An Bord Pleanala. DAA has been trapped in a time-warped planning hell, largely due to permissions for Dublin’s second terminal and the northern runway, both of which pre-dated the laws.
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The terminal approval, which dates back to 2005, included the 32 million passenger cap. The northern runway permission, granted in 2007, substantially increased the capacity of the airport, yet reduced the number of movements between 11pm and 7am from 100 to 65. The economic implications of those restrictions stalled the project until DAA decided to build anyway and then challenge the curbs legally.
Its tack was to follow the prevailing wind of change in Europe where noise pollution rather than aircraft movements dictated night-time usage. DAA was successful to a point, the problem being Ireland did not have a noise regulator. In 2016, the government announced that the Aircraft Noise Competent Authority (ANCA) would be established within the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA). A year later, however, the attorney-general ruled that a conflict of interest existed between the commercial interests of the IAA, which relies on DAA for the bulk of its revenue, and its role as airport noise regulator.
Bewilderingly, it was thought that the IAA would go into cahoots with DAA and disregard the welfare of citizens so as to line its state coffers. So, in 2019, some three years after it was first mooted, ANCA was established within Fingal county council. Shane Ross, the transport minister, who vowed that he would not allow a state monopoly to “bully” local residents, said that locals’ concerns had been heeded.
The decision meant DAA was again answerable to the local authority. The airport fell outside the strategic infrastructure planning route. The nightmare has rolled on. ANCA ruled that the flight restrictions on the northern runway be replaced with an annual noise quota. It recommended a ban on take-off and landing on the new runway between midnight and 6am rather than the restricted activity between 11pm and 7am. DAA welcomed the decision, local residents appealed against it to An Bord Pleanala. That was in September 2022. A decision may not emerge until the autumn. By then it will have taken eight years to resolve the night-time flights issue.
When DAA mulled an interim increase in the annual passenger cap in 2020, it was advised the night-time restrictions would have to be solved first. So DAA decided to go full out and seek a new 40 million passenger cap as part of a €2 billion development plan.
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This summer airlines will most likely plough ahead as normal and ration capacity from October onwards. The crunch will come next year when Aer Lingus is expected to get six new aircraft for expansion. Its parent, IAG, may look to deploy those planes elsewhere.
Public participation is integral to the planning system. Yet the experience at Dublin airport has been chaotic and haphazard. Climate change will add a new layer of complexity to the Gordian knot. The passenger cap was based on road traffic around the airport. If the cap is raised, however, it could well be challenged on the grounds that it conflicts with government climate change policy. The government’s new planning and development bill promises wide-ranging reform, with statutory timelines on decisions and reform of judicial reviews. It faces a race against time to be made law in the lifetime of the current Dail. The current dysfunction is more likely to rumble on.
