FANCY LANDING IN A BOG?

Northside People East 18 April 07
(Niall Gormley)

The decision on the second runway at Dublin Airport is now imminent, probably next month. My money is on the runway getting approval but you never know.
The Portmarnock group UPROAR have fought a long battle against this runway. One of the good things about their campaign is that they suggested an alternative.
The alternative seems at first a bit barmy, but on closer inspection has a lot of merit to it. What they propose is that a .ew airport be built in the boglands of north Kildare or east Offaly.

Mad, isn't it?
Well not on closer inspection. The bogland in question in north Kildare is just 25 miles from O'Connell Bridge or just a 15 minute drive on the motorway from Lucan. It would probably be as convenient for most southsiders as Dublin Airport.

One of the problems with Dublin Airport is that it is not just an airport for Dublin - it is the airport for all of Leinster and a large chunk of Ireland beyond that. It is a huge draw for traffic into Dublin, much of it with no interest in being in Dublin at all.

An airport in north Kildare would serve the whole midlands on popular routes such as London while Dublin Airport could continue to serve the city of Dublin and the lesser used routes.

The site is also very well connected, being midway between the M4 and the M7, two of the busiest roads in Ireland; and also very close to the railway commuter lines into Dublin. Finally, the proposed outer motorway ring from Drogheda to Naas would be very close to the site.

That's all very well, I hear you say, but what about the money?

Consider this. As UPROAR have pointed out, building land in Dublin will set you back millions per acre. If the land now being allocated to the second runway was allocated to housing it would be worth an absolute fortune.

The land in question in North Kildare is worth whatever turf it has still on it and it is already in State ownership. So basically it's free.

The second runway is a done deal, in my humble opinion, but Casement Aerodrome at Baldonnel is awaiting a big plan. If the military were to be located to a new airport in North Kildare, Baldonnel would also be worth billions and would be potentially of far more use to the city of Dublin than being set aside for an airport.

It's not just the runways, car parks and terminals that use up land - huge swathes of land under the flight paths cannot be used once an airport is built.

The land in North Kildare is also not virgin bogland. It has been industrially mined for turf so that the environmental consequences would be small. I'm not a civil engineer but I'm sure the task of building on former bogland would not be insurmountable.

Even if the new runway at Dublin Airport gets the go ahead, there is a strong case for a second major airport in North Kildare. Given the strains at the current airport with passenger numbers crossing 20 million a year, the time to start thinking about a new airport is now.