Trevor Sargent must act now.

In the light of the decisions by An Bord Pleanála (ABP) to approve the new parallel runway and Phase 1 of Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport, the Portmarnock Community Association - UPROAR is calling on local T.D. Trevor Sargent to ensure the Government's decision to proceed with building is taken only after the proper analysis has been carried out.

Our letter to Minister Sargent can be read at: www.norunway.com/tsabp.

See also Wednesday's Irish Times editorial at: www.norunway.com/ntda.

We point out to Trevor that the Government as shareholder in the Dublin Airport Authority has to decide if, now that planning approval has been given, construction should actually take place. Construction is not automatic as evidenced by the Inishbiggle case. In addition to the various policies referred to by ABP in arriving at its decision, other Government policies apply. These can broadly be described as Value foMoney policy. This policy, whether under the Department of Finance
Guidelines for the appraisal of capital projects or under Chapter 12 of the new National Development Plan, stipulates that all projects over EUR30 million must be subjected to a full cost benefit analysis. This has not yet been carried out for the proposed runway and terminal.

This analysis constitutes the "test of sustainability" referred to by the Taoiseach at the Towards Sustainable Airport Development conference on 23 October 2006. It is a necessary condition for sustainable development and has precedence over all other policies. Evidently, if a project does not lead to a net gain in national welfare in social, environmental and economic terms it cannot be a sustainable development
and must not proceed.

In addition, the Programme for Government of 2007 repeats the Value for Money requirements of the NDP and adds that, in the case of transport projects, a multi-criteria analysis must be done to take environmental factors fully into account. This later condition is considered by the Green Party to be a major gain from their negotiations to form a new government.

As far as the decisions of ABP are concerned we deplore the decision of the Board to overturn the opinion of the Inspector in the new runway case. In upholding our appeal, the Inspector found that, particularly in the case of noise, the DAA's information was deficient. On road traffic she found that it was "disingenuous [of the DAA] to claim that an infrastructural project of the size proposed will not have a material effect." The DAA and FCC had tried to claim that all significant road
traffic implications should be attributed to the new terminal and not the new runway, even though the runway was designed to carry something like 30 million passengers per annum. On the other hand, at the Terminal 2 oral hearing the DAA tried cynically to claim that the new terminal would have minimal material impact because the new runway would be already in place with all its extra passengers! It is of some comfort that the Inspector was not taken in by this disgraceful attempt to pervert the process of public scrutiny.

Some of the conditions attached by the Board to the new runway are superficially attractive but will not minimize the negative impacts of the runway, if it were to survive proper appraisal and be built. The restricted use of the new runway to avoid Portmarnock and the restriction on night usage of the new runway are subject to exceptions such as safety and weather conditions. If our current experience with
adherence to the existing environmental corridor is to be a guide, these exceptions will be abused by the DAA to undermine any mitigation effects. The limitation to 65 flights per night on the whole airport is a step forward from the earlier position of no night restrictions, but is much too generous to the DAA. Heathrow is limited to a maximum of 16 flights in the same nighttime period between 23:00 and 07:00. Dublin
Airport should have even fewer night flights than the much larger Heathrow. The supposed special treatment of Portmarnock in terms of preferred usage of the new runway, if it were to be honoured, would amount to special abuse of the St Margaret's community at the other end of the proposed new runway.

The Portmarnock Community Association is consulting the people of Portmarnock on our next steps, which may well include a challenge to the ABP decisions under the Judicial Review process. We are also pursuing our actions in Europe. The Director General for Energy and Transport is now carrying out a preliminary investigation into our complaint about unlawful State aid granted to Dublin Airport in the form of a hidden subsidy.