daa has apologised for the North Runway’s routes from August 2022 to February 2023. For the routes since, it has something else: a phrase.
In January 2023 it was in the Taoiseach’s speaking notes. The routes, they said, “needed to be updated to align flightpaths more closely with the information previously communicated by daa”. The new routes started on Thursday 23 February 2023. In March 2026 the same words turned up in daa’s briefing pack for the Oireachtas.
“The information previously communicated.” Remember that phrase. What information?
In October 2016 daa held a public consultation on the North Runway’s routes. Three afternoons: a hotel in Malahide, a GAA club in St Margaret’s, a community centre in Swords. 327 people came. 33,000 leaflets went out, to thirty places from Portmarnock to Tyrrelstown. Every one of them in Fingal.
The routes flown today turn north-west, into County Meath. About 30,000 people live within 3 km of them. After all that communication, 261 people answered daa’s RedC survey. 9 gave an address in Meath.
So that’s who was asked. Why were they asked?
Because daa wanted a planning permission changed. The booklet’s title says it: “Consultation on Flight Paths and Change to Permitted Operations”. daa wanted to fly the North Runway at night, and two of the permission’s conditions stood in the way: no North Runway take-offs or landings at night, and a cap on night flights “so as to protect residential amenity”. With them, the Board was satisfied there’d be “no significant deterioration in noise conditions at night”. daa called them “onerous and we believe unwarranted”. Changing them meant a new environmental assessment, and that assessment, in daa’s words, “requires a decision around future flights paths at Dublin Airport”.
So: “This consultation is about helping to determine the new flight paths for North Runway.” In other words, to change the permission, you have to say where the planes go.
That’s who and why. What were they asked?
daa put two options to them. Scenario A: every North Runway departure turns 15 degrees. Scenario B: heading west, some turn 15 degrees and some turn 75, “depending on ultimate destination of aircraft”. People were asked which they preferred, and daa reported “a preference for Scenario B”.
A preference among how many? 33,000 leaflets went out. 261 people filled in the survey. Of those, 115 chose neither option. About 96 chose B.
So “a preference for Scenario B” was about 96 people. And even Red C, which ran the survey, said its own sample was “self-selecting” and “not representative of any population”.
And daa didn’t just note the preference. Its own report calls B “the chosen NPR”, and its draft environmental assessment for night flights was built on B, “Based on the Second Consultation feedback”. About 96 people.
The booklet they were answering never mentions Meath. Not once. The only place Ashbourne turns up in the whole consultation is Red C’s count of where people surveyed lived. Two people. Whether they were among the 96, nobody knows.
So the information was communicated to people in Fingal, and about 96 of them picked an option. The planes now turn into Meath, and daa calls that “the information previously communicated”.
Now the information. The booklet had maps showing where the planes would fly, dispersed over the fields and villages. Above them, daa explained: “We have illustrated using a 15⁰N divergence for easterly and westerly departures on North Runway as this is the minimum requirement.” Word for word, that’s how the booklet defines Scenario A.
Fifteen degrees, for every departure.
Both options got noise contours, blobs showing how loud it gets. Only A got fans of lines over the towns showing where the planes would go. The only pictures of planes over people’s houses were pictures of the option that wasn’t preferred.
In August 2022 the runway opened, and the planes flew something with a 75-degree turn in it, like Scenario B. Thirty degrees instead of fifteen for the rest, which wasn’t in any of it (story 1 has that one). Six months later came the fix: the 75 came out, and the traffic moved out over Meath, looking more like the picture.
Aligned more closely with the information previously communicated. Which is to say: made to look more like the drawing of Scenario A.
Why the picture? The Department of Transport told the Oireachtas: “The DAA obviously does not have expertise in the design of flight paths”. A route is published as a chart: waypoints, altitudes, headings. daa, the same daa, the Aerodrome Operator, that expressed its surprise at where the aircraft went when it opened its new runway, had one other thing: a picture, in its own booklet, from 2016.
“That is the legal position,” said the Department: daa is responsible. The Department that oversees all of Irish aviation. Speaking for a State that owns daa outright, and a Minister who appoints its board. Blame Somebody Else.
So, here’s where we’ve landed. The routes daa flies today were made to look more like the picture of the option 96 people didn’t prefer, and daa didn’t adopt, from a consultation held in the wrong county, that heard from nine people in the county now under the planes, about a 15-degree turn the planes don’t make.
And any consultation, however brilliantly run, isn’t a permission. Nobody assessed the switch. Nobody with planning powers decided on it. daa ran it, daa wrote it up, and daa says planning permission was never needed.
But yeah, protecting citizens of the Irish Republic is onerous and unwarranted.
Sources
- RTÉ Prime Time, “How an unexpected Dublin flight path has caused airport outrage”, 3 October 2023, carrying daa’s apology for the routes flown from August 2022 to February 2023: https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2023/1003/1408594-how-an-unexpected-dublin-flight-path-has-caused-airport-outrage/
- Department of Transport, Airports Division, speaking points and briefing material for the Taoiseach’s speech to the Dublin Chamber AGM, 23 January 2023 (“needed to be updated to align flightpaths more closely with the information previously communicated by daa”; daa’s advice that the procedures “were not aligned to modelling”). Released to NRTG under FOI request FOI-2025-0110 (Department of Transport), 24 July 2025
- Department of Transport, briefing note “daa engagement on Airport noise”, 21 March 2023 (revised departure procedures “introduced on Thursday, February 23”). Released to NRTG under FOI request FOI-2025-0110 (Department of Transport), 24 July 2025
- daa, “JOC Top Issues Q&A”, briefing pack for the Joint Committee on Transport, 23 March 2026. Released to NRTG under AIE request 2631 (daa), 10 September 2026
- daa, North Runway Report, Consultation on Flight Paths and Change to Permitted Operations, February 2017 (the three consultation events and 327 attendees; 33,000 leaflets and the thirty localities they went to; the two scenarios, “depending on ultimate destination of aircraft”; “a preference for Scenario B”; “the chosen NPR”): https://www.dublinairport.com/docs/default-source/north-runway-downloads/public-consultation-report–flight-paths-and-change-to-permitted-operations.pdf?sfvrsn=b06d628_2
- NRTG, Quantifying Noise Impact of Dublin Airport’s North Runway Departure Routes: An EIA-Conformance Gap Analysis, version 1.0, 15 April 2026 (about 30,000 residents within 3 km each side of the routes flown: 30,540 in total): https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19567671
- Red C Research for daa, North Runway Consultation Report, on the consultation survey of October to December 2016 (261 responses; respondents’ addresses, 9 of them in Meath: County Meath 3, Ashbourne 2, Dunboyne 2, Navan 2; scenario preferences of 37% B, 19% A, 44% neither, and 66% B among the 146 who chose an option; “a self-selecting sample and not representative of any population”). The figures of 115 and about 96 are NRTG’s arithmetic from Red C’s numbers. Published by daa in 2017 and no longer online; NRTG holds a copy
- daa, consultation brochure “Consultation on Flight Paths and Change to Permitted Operations”, October 2016 (two conditions “onerous and we believe unwarranted”; the assessment “requires a decision around future flights paths at Dublin Airport”; “This consultation is about helping to determine the new flight paths for North Runway”; flight movement maps illustrated at 15 degrees “as this is the minimum requirement”; noise contour maps for both scenarios). Reproduced in Appendix A of daa’s February 2017 report (link above)
- An Bord Pleanála, decision granting permission for the North Runway, ref PL06F.217429 (Fingal ref F04A/1755), 29 August 2007, with the Board’s Direction: condition 3(d) (no North Runway take-offs or landings from 2300 to 0700), condition 5 (night flights limited “so as to protect residential amenity”), and the Board’s finding of “no significant deterioration in noise conditions at night”. Fingal County Council planning file F04A/1755: https://planning.agileapplications.ie/fingal/application-details/37968
- RPS for daa, North Runway Proposal to Change Permitted Operations, draft Environmental Impact Statement, Consultation Chapter (MDE0951Rp0015, revision A02), February 2017 (“Based on the Second Consultation feedback”). Released to NRTG under AIE request 2607 (daa), on internal review, 26 May 2026
- AIP Ireland (published by the Irish Aviation Authority, now by AirNav Ireland), Dublin Airport Runway 28R standard instrument departure charts, EIDW AD 2.24-13.1, as published for the North Runway’s opening in August 2022 (turns of 30 degrees, and about 75 degrees on some routes) and as revised in 2023. Current edition: https://www.airnav.ie/air-traffic-management/aeronautical-information-management/aip-package; NRTG holds copies of the 2022 and 2023 editions
- Joint Committee on Transport, evidence of the Department of Transport, 4 March 2026 (“That is the legal position”; “The DAA obviously does not have expertise in the design of flight paths”). Official report: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/joint_committee_on_transport/2026-03-04/
- Air Navigation and Transport (Amendment) Act 1998, Part II (daa’s shares held by the Minister for Finance) and section 22(3) (directors appointed by the Minister): https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1998/act/24/enacted/en/html; and State Airports Act 2004 (renaming the company as Dublin Airport Authority and applying section 22(3) to its board), revised: https://revisedacts.lawreform.ie/eli/2004/act/32/revised/en/html
- Joint Committee on Transport, evidence of daa, 24 March 2026 (“Flight paths were not part of that planning permission”). Official report: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/joint_committee_on_transport/2026-03-24/