Quoting aviation economics expert, John Kasarda, Portmarnock group UPROAR said the relatively cheap bogland could be the location for a new airport and drive economic development around it to create an 'airport city'.

UPROAR said that if it was decided to build a new state-of-the-art airport on such land, a new city could be developed and be designed so that residential communities are not put under flight-paths or too near runways.

An UPROAR spokesperson said: 'It makes much more economic sense to build such an airport than to continue the unsustainable development of an increasingly inaccessible Dublin Airport in an already very congested North County Dublin, where land is worth €2 million an acre.'

'At the same time, if a second parallel runway is not built at Dublin Airport, thousands of acres of very valuable land, public and private, would be released for development at Dublin Airport and under the new flightpath that will not then be put over existing communities. It is a win-win option.'

UPROAR claims that a Government minister has opened the door for the consideration of a new airport when Minister Micheal Martin TD said in a radio interview that alternatives like a second airport to the south of Dublin should be considered.

While saying the airport extension needs to go ahead to cope in the short-term, Minister Martin said a second airport deserved consideration.

This contrasts sharply with the position taken by Transport Minister Martin Cullen who told the Dáil in June 2005 that he had no intention of studying alternative options for the provision of airport capacity to serve the Greater Dublin Area.

UPROAR has called the ongoing expansion at Dublin Airport 'reckless, uneconomic and unsustainable' and demanded that an independent evaluation of alternatives be undertaken.