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No Second Airport Required - Cllr. Byrne
North County Leader 16 Jan 2007

Dublin needs two airports according to Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny commenting in the national media, Monday last week. He argued that the passenger numbers at Dublin Airport have always been underestimated leading to overcrowding, and that the exponential rise in usage has led to traffic congestion which will only get worse. He said he wanted to avoid what he called the "Heathrow like" development of a second runway and said an analysis should be carried out on the option of a second
airport.

Labour's Cllr. Ciarán Byrne rubbished these comments last week and strongly defended the County Council's Dublin Airport Masterplan saying that no second airport was needed if the plan was seen through to fruition. He told the County Leader that the Council had invested a lot of time and effort into developing the plan and reaching an agreement and that this work shouldn't be abandoned now. He said, "In sheer terms of a cost benefit analysis it makes more sense to develop Dublin Airport to a capacity which is well capable of taking it further for at least
the next quarter of a century. This would optimise the use of the existing road network and to generate additional employment and economic activity in North Dublin simply by following the existing plan which took years to get to anyway."

Cllr. Byrne said that Deputy Kenny's concerns about capacity would be addressed by the Council's Masterplan which when developed to completion would mean the airport would have two main runways, three terminals, a Metro station and an extensive new road network.

In terms of traffic congestion he explained that the new Metro would alleviate road usage, especially if it was extended from Swords to the main railway line at Donabate.

Referring to Enda Kenny's comments as "Braindead", Cllr. Byrne said, "I disagree fundamentally and extremely strongly with people that propose delaying the development at Dublin Airport, particularly the second runway or the second terminal."