Runway Plan Take Off Delayed
City Wide News 7 - 20 Mar 2007

Dublin Airport's planned second runway project is still stalled this month as the Dublin Airport Authority has this week submitted requested additional information to An Bord Pleanala on the plan. The additional information is in the area of air craft noise, and it is understood that An Bord Pleanala may now re-open the oral hearing into the project, according to a DAA spokesperson.

Also anxiously awaiting any decision runway position group UPROAR recently unveiled figures which they claim illustrate that Dublin Airport's expansion plan will cost at least €8.4 billion in climate change damage alone, and waste €13 billion in total. Dublin Airport's expansion plan will bring passenger numbers to 35 million per annum by 2020 and to a full capacity of 60 million by about 2035. "Using figures
based on Ryanair's fuel consumption per passenger and the findings of The Stern Review we find that the cost of the damage done by this expansion, in terms of global warming, comes to a staggering €8.4 billion, at least," says spokesperson, Matt Harley.

This comes on top of further multi billion euro in wasted costs associated with the plan, according to UPROAR. "That waste is due to a misuse of very valuable land, the economic cost of road congestion and an estimate of the loss of welfare to communities surrounding Dublin Airport. It can therefore be concluded that the expansion plans of Dublin Airport will incur, at a conservative estimate, a net loss of €13 billion," says Harley. (Full details on UPROAR, and the groups figures, costings and research basis etc are available at www.norunway.com).

In response to UPROAR's emissions statement, a DAA spokesperson comments that the group appear to be pointing the figure more towards the airlines rather than the airport on this particular issue. "Yes, Dublin Airport's expansion will facilitate growth and that growth is being brought about by the demand for people to fly more frequently and to more destinations," she says. It has been proven, however, that Ireland's biggest contribution to greenhouse gasses currently comes from agricultural activity and not from aviation, she added.

The spokeswoman also confirmed that, following a DAA and Garda investigation into a recent incident at the airport, Dublin Airport Authority is taking "the necessary steps" to ensure a recent grafitti attack on an aircraft does not happen again.

Meanwhile, the east coast's private airport, Weston has been denied permission to facilitate international flights in and out of the Leixlip - Lucan aerodrome by Minister for Transport, Mr Martin Cullen. The airport was the departure site of a multi million euro heroin haul recovered in Belgium last year.

Local Independent Deputy, Catherine Murphy says she is pleased at the ban, particularly in light of what she has termed an extremely lax approach by Government towards immigration, customs and flight movement monitoring at all small airfields in the country, including Weston.

Speaking on the urgent need for more stringent security and compliance measures at all ports and airports, Murphy said last years interception in Belgium of €10 million worth of heroin bound for Weston was a clear indicator of just how "open" the government has left us. When asked what immigration measures are in place at Weston by Murphy, the Minister for Justice conceded that no inspectors are in place at the airfield except where the operators of Weston inform his Department that they have foreign nationals coming in. Similarly, the Department of Finance conducted a review of customs arrangements at Weston last year concluding, in December 2006, that it was entirely acceptable for them to carry out as few as 10 inspections in a year as has been the case of late. Murphy feels that such derisory levels of inspection and immigration control are "ridiculous." The fact that over 600 unauthorised flights into and out of Weston were allowed to occur at all is very worrying, but unfortunately unsurprising to me," she added.