UPROAR Press Release: 30 Sep 2006
Trevor Sargent at An Bord Pleanála, 29 September 2006.

On Friday last, leader of the Green Party, Trevor Sargent spoke at the oral hearing at An Bord Pleanála into the appeals against the granting of planning permission by Fingal County Council (FCC) for a new parallel runway at Dublin Airport. Fifteen appeals have been lodged, including one by the Portmarnock Community Association - UPROAR.

Mr Sargent started by asserting that the claim now being made to the oral hearing by FCC that the new runway would not, of itself, generate any road traffic problems was ludicrous. It was evident the runway would have a significant impact on road traffic. Regarding the health effects of aircraft, there was ample evidence of detrimental effects on children's education and on other health problems such as cardiac disease and blood pressure.

As a teacher, he was particularly concerned about the unacceptable impacts noise from this runway would have on the education of 11,500 children in 19 schools in the area. He referred to a report by Dr Anthony Staines of UCD who was due to speak to the hearing after Mr Sargent, that no proper human health impact assessment had been done for this runway proposal and asked that the decision of An Bord Pleanála should be delayed until such a study was done correctly.

He also said that, as far as National Spatial Strategy was concerned, the runway proposal was jeopardising the national interest by exacerbating the persistent economic imbalances between the Greater Dublin Area and the West. Dublin was suffering from excessive growth as evidenced by traffic congestion, among other problems, whereas the West was suffering from a lack of development. This runway proposal was also against National Development Policy and government sustainable growth policy.

Referring to the under-utilisation of Cork and Shannon airports, he noted that Cork and Shannon had seen little or no growth in air traffic in recent years, whereas growth at Dublin Airport had been exponential. Deputy Sargent also decried the absence of a National Aviation Policy that should properly take account of all the implications of the looming peak-oil crisis, and the cost impacts of global warming due to aircraft emissions. The DAA's projection that growth in aircraft movements
would continue strongly was questionable.

He referred to an article in the Sunday Observer on 5 January 2003 which reported that British Prime Minister Tony Blair was urged by an Institute for Public Policy Research report to scrap new runway proposals and to utilise existing capacity at airports more efficiently before such expansion was considered. The report by Simon Bishop, also urged that if new capacity really was needed, it should be located in
Manchester, Glasgow or Yorkshire rather than at Heathrow, Stansted or Gatwick.
See: http://norunway.com/Archive/Media%20Coverage/Observer05Jan03.html

Given the absence of our own National Aviation Policy - except to the extent that Dublin Airport was effectively the author of our aviation policy - Mr Sargent said we should look to such policy examples elsewhere to guide us.

He said Dublin Airport Authority was a state body, whose shareholder is the government and it is accountable to the people. He had already raised the absence of a cost benefit analysis of the new runway proposal in the Dáil. He said that he had asked Transport Minister Martin Cullen directly in the Dáil if he would ensure that a cost benefit analysis was carried out. Minister Cullen replied that he had no intention of asking for such a study. Asked why he (Mr Sargent) had asked the minister rather than the DAA for this study, Mr Sargent replied that, as a member
of the Dáil, he had gone to the minister responsible for aviation policy, assuming also that, as a member of the Cabinet, Mr Cullen would also be sensitive to his colleague Minister Cowen's requirement that a cost benefit analysis be carried out. In Mr Sargent's opinion, it appeared that the Dublin Airport Authority was not keen to do such a study in spite of Minister Cowen's guidelines, but were waiting to be
told by Minister Cullen to do it. In the light of the fact that Cargobridge land right beside Dublin Airport had been sold for €2.5 million an acre in 2000, the real cost of this proposed runway development was very different from what was being claimed by the DAA.

Another cost not considered was the rising cost of aviation fuel. There was a need for a reality check on oil prices. The projections of the Environmental Impact Statement had been based on an oil price of $45 per barrel in 2005, whereas the price was now much higher, and future supply and demand developments would determine that it would continue to rise sharply.

Another cost excluded was the cost of climate change. George Monbiot's warnings on RTE's Prime Time on Thursday last have to be taken seriously as should Al Gore's message in his film "An Inconvenient Truth". There were huge cost implications of the damage done by climate change. E.g., storm and flood damage due to global warming and these and related escalating insurance costs were being ignored.

Mr Sargent said an alternative to the unsustainable development at Dublin Airport was to develop Shannon and provide a high-speed rail link to Dublin in conjunction with a western link between Shannon and Galway.