Lies, damned lies and DAA statistics.

In the Irish Independent,"In Business" supplement, Summer 2007 (14 June) Declan Collier, CEO of the Dublin Airport Authority is reported as saying: "Economic studies indicate that airports generally support between 750 and 1,000 jobs per million passengers that travel through the airport." He goes on to say: "As delivery of T2 allows Dublin Airport to grow towards 35 million passengers per year over the next 12 to 13 years, the number employed at the airport is likely to rise by approximately 10,000." We agree, even if these jobs would not be extra jobs for the Irish economy They would just displace other jobs and hinder business development in Fingal, rather than bring economic benefits. We said so at An Bord Pleanála.

But that is not what the DAA told An Bord Pleanála (ABP). The Environmental Impact Statements for the new parallel runway and the second terminal both said that the extra 10 million passengers per annum (mppa) that will result by 2025 only if the airport's Masterplan, including a new runway and new terminal, goes ahead, will generate just 3,700 jobs at Dublin Airport (only 370 per mppa). They get this small figure by assuming impossible gains in labour productivity in the future. Because so many jobs will supposedly be lost to productivity gains, it allows them to scare people by claiming, that if the new runway, terminal, etc., are not built, total jobs at Dublin Airport will actually fall by 2,500 by 2025 even though passenger numbers will increase to 28 million. Do the unions at Dublin Airport know they are
expected to double productivity? It also allows the DAA to understate the road traffic impacts of airport employees, most of them use their cars to get to and from work, adding to the inevitable chaos on the M1/M50 road network. The Metro will help but will not solve the extra road traffic problems. These distortions of fact were exposed by UPROAR at the runway and terminal oral hearings at ABP. Yet the DAA's consultants continued to argue that their figures were correct.

Now Declan Collier has forgotten the spin his people have been peddling and has reverted to the "good news" version of job creation at Dublin Airport. He now talks of an extra 10,000 jobs to cater for an extra 12 mppa or so by 2020. That is nearly three times the figure given by his people at ABP for 2025! He assumes about 850 jobs per mppa but forgets to make any adjustment for productivity gains by 2020. What happened to the 370 jobs per mppa at ABP? It is clear we cannot believe a word from the DAA as it continues to try to deceive the people and our public
representatives, many of whom blindly support Dublin Airport's expansion plans because they have been taken in by the spin. Will Declan Collier now write to An Bord Pleanála to correct the two EIS documents on which decisions are about to be based about allowing Terminal 2 and the new parallel runway?