Submission to the Joint Committee on Transport

Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Dublin Airport (Passenger Capacity) Bill 2026

Submitted by: North Runway Technical Group (NRTG)

Request for Oral Evidence

NRTG formally requests that the Committee invite it to give oral evidence in public session as part of its pre-legislative scrutiny of this Bill. NRTG delivered a 64-page technical briefing to Committee members in April 2024 and is available at the Committee’s convenience. The CEOs of DAA, IAA, and AirNav have been afforded extended public sessions before this Committee; the affected communities have not.

Executive Summary

The 32 million passenger cap is the sole enforceable proxy for the cumulative environmental impact of Dublin Airport on surrounding communities, controlling noise, wastewater, water demand, road congestion, and air quality through a single measurable metric.
The General Scheme does not merely remove the current cap: it prohibits any future capacity condition from being imposed, permanently extinguishing a core planning tool and creating a chilling effect on all environmental regulation of the airport.
Head-by-head analysis reveals provisions that retrospectively repeal transitional protections (Head 4(3)(b)), declare facts by legislation rather than evidence (Head 4(5)), grant ministerial power with discretionary rather than mandatory consultation (Head 5), narrow the scope of environmental assessment (Head 6), subordinate the noise regulator to ministerial direction (Head 10), restrict access to justice (Head 11), and exempt the Bill from Ireland’s climate legislation (Head 12).
The infrastructure required to support growth beyond 32 million passengers does not yet have planning permission. DAA’s omnibus application was returned with 375 material deficiencies and remains incomplete.
The existing regulatory framework has demonstrably failed: Fingal identified nine categories of planning non-compliance in 2022; enforcement has been attempted on only two, and both enforcement actions were met with High Court challenges or legislation to remove the condition.
The Committee’s information sources on this Bill are not independent of each other: documentary evidence shows the Department of Transport relays daa and AirNav positions under ministerial authority without independent verification (Annex E).
NRTG recommends that the Bill retain the power to set capacity limits, tie any increase to verified infrastructure readiness, remove the climate exemption, require independent environmental assessment, reform ANCA, and address existing planning non-compliance before removing the cap.

1. Introduction and Standing

The North Runway Technical Group (NRTG) is a voluntary group of qualified aviation professionals, including commercial and private pilots, civil engineers, and aviation safety specialists, examining the technical, environmental, and governance aspects of Dublin Airport’s North Runway operations since 2022. NRTG’s work is publicly available at www.dublin-north-runway.com.

NRTG has engaged extensively with this Committee, including a formal proposal in February 2024 (ref. JCTC-i-1112) and a 64-page technical briefing in April 2024. NRTG has also made a detailed submission to An Coimisiun Pleanala on the North Runway Relevant Action.

NRTG is entirely voluntary, with no funding, staff, or legal resources. DAA, AirNav Ireland, and the Department of Transport are publicly funded bodies with professional communications teams and legal support. The Committee should bear this asymmetry in mind when weighing the submissions it receives.

NRTG does not oppose sustainable growth at Dublin Airport. However, the General Scheme raises fundamental questions about environmental protection, infrastructure readiness, and democratic accountability that the Committee should consider before recommending that the Bill proceed.

2. The Passenger Cap as Environmental Proxy

The 32 million passenger cap was imposed as a condition of the 2007 Terminal 2 planning permission, calculated by reference to the capacity of surrounding infrastructure to absorb the airport’s impact: road and public transport networks, domestic water supply, wastewater treatment capacity, aircraft noise exposure, and air quality.

The cap functions as a single, measurable, enforceable proxy for the cumulative environmental impact of the airport. Every environmental consequence (noise, wastewater, water demand, road congestion, air emissions) is a direct derivative of passenger numbers and the flights required to carry them.

In 2025, Dublin Airport processed 36.4 million passengers, exceeding the cap by 4.4 million. Each of those passengers consumed water, generated wastewater discharged into a treatment system already in persistent breach of EU directives, and required flights that have increased noise exposure over approximately 30,000 residents by 343% against the 2019 baseline (Annex A).

Removing the cap without first establishing robust, independently enforced alternatives would remove the sole existing brake on environmental degradation in these communities. The question the Bill must answer is: if the Oireachtas removes the power to limit passenger numbers, what mechanism remains to control the cumulative environmental load?

Annex A sets out the detailed evidence on wastewater treatment capacity at Ringsend, ANCA noise exposure data, and water supply impacts.

3. Head-by-Head Analysis

The following analysis addresses the provisions of the General Scheme that raise the most significant concerns.

3.1 Head 4(3)(b): Retrospective Repeal of Transitional Protections

Sections 29 and 30 of the Aircraft Noise (Dublin Airport) Regulation Act 2019 were enacted as transitional provisions to protect existing planning conditions, including the passenger cap, during the transition to the Balanced Approach framework under EU Regulation 598/2014. Head 4(3)(b) repeals those protections retrospectively, removing the legislative guarantee given when the 2019 Act was passed. Communities and their representatives who accepted the 2019 Act on the understanding that existing protections would be preserved are now told, seven years later, that those protections are being removed by a different piece of legislation.

3.2 Head 4(5): Retroactive Declaration of the Cap’s Purpose

Head 4(5) declares by legislation that the passenger cap was not imposed for noise mitigation, was not imposed having regard to the Balanced Approach, and was not notified to the European Commission as an operating restriction. Whether the cap constitutes an “operating restriction” under Regulation 598/2014 is a matter of law and fact, not legislative declaration. The practical effect is to bypass the procedural protections of the Regulation (noise assessment, public consultation, and Commission notification) that would otherwise apply to its removal.

3.3 Head 5: Ministerial Power with Discretionary Consultation

Head 5 gives the Minister the power to revoke or amend any planning condition limiting passenger capacity by ministerial order. Consultation is discretionary: the Minister “may” consult the planning authority, daa, the IAA, and others. The word is “may,” not “shall.” There is no mandatory requirement to consult affected communities or any environmental body. For a measure that will permanently alter the environmental conditions experienced by approximately 30,000 residents, the absence of mandatory consultation is notable.

Head 5(11) provides that even if the Oireachtas annuls the order within 21 sitting days, anything done under the order before annulment remains valid. Once the cap is revoked, tickets are sold and flights scheduled immediately; the annulment power is largely symbolic because the consequences become irreversible before the Oireachtas can act.

3.4 Head 6: Inversion of the Environmental Impact Assessment

Head 6 provides for an EIA of “the making of an order” rather than the environmental effects of the growth that follows. The removal of a planning condition is an administrative act; the environmental impact comes from the growth it enables. By framing the EIA around the order rather than the growth, the Bill narrows the scope of what must be assessed. The Committee should consider requiring assessment of the environmental effects of growth up to a specified passenger number, not merely the administrative act of removing the condition.

3.5 Head 10: Subordination of ANCA

Head 10 directs ANCA to “take any order made under Head 5 into account” in its noise action planning. ANCA’s function under EU Regulation 598/2014 is to manage noise using the Balanced Approach, including operating restrictions where other measures are insufficient. Head 10 pre-empts that function by requiring ANCA to plan around unlimited growth rather than assess whether growth should be constrained on noise grounds. This raises a compliance question under Regulation 598/2014, which requires the competent authority to act independently. ANCA has achieved zero enforcement outcomes in five years while noise exposure has increased by 343%.

3.6 Head 11: Restrictions on Access to Justice

Head 11 imposes three significant restrictions on legal challenges. First, proceedings must commence within 8 weeks rather than the standard three months, an unusually compressed timeline for communities without in-house legal teams. Second, it removes the right of appeal to the Court of Appeal, leaving only the Supreme Court on constitutional grounds under Article 34.5.4, a significantly higher threshold. Third, it limits standing to persons “directly or indirectly materially affected,” potentially excluding environmental organisations notwithstanding Ireland’s obligations under the Aarhus Convention to ensure access to justice for the “public concerned.” With High Court proceedings costing approximately EUR 10,000 per day, these restrictions would make it significantly more difficult for affected communities to challenge decisions made under the Bill.

3.7 Head 12: Climate Legislation Exemption

Head 12 exempts functions under this Bill from section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015, which requires public bodies to take account of national climate objectives. The General Scheme describes its own purpose as ensuring “the sustainable development of Dublin Airport.” It is difficult to reconcile a claim of sustainable development with an express exemption from Ireland’s primary climate legislation. Aviation accounts for approximately 10% of Ireland’s carbon emissions. Removing the passenger cap, preventing any future cap, and exempting the Bill from climate legislation is difficult to square with Ireland’s binding commitments under the Paris Agreement, the European Climate Law, and the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021.

4. Infrastructure Readiness

The infrastructure required to support passenger numbers above 32 million does not yet have planning permission. In December 2024, DAA lodged an omnibus planning application for 11 major infrastructure projects comprising over 7,500 pages. Fingal County Council returned the application with 375 material deficiencies. Over a year later, DAA has still not supplied all of the information required to address those deficiencies.

DAA chose to build the North Runway (at a cost of EUR 370 million of State-owned company funds) before securing planning permission for the supporting terminal, landside, and airside infrastructure. That was DAA’s commercial decision, not a State policy commitment. London Gatwick Airport handles over 40 million passengers per annum with a single runway, suggesting a second runway was not a prerequisite for the passenger numbers now being discussed.

Removing the passenger cap before this infrastructure exists means authorising growth that the airport’s own operator has acknowledged cannot be supported without upgrades that do not have planning permission. The appropriate sequence is infrastructure first, then growth. The Committee should not allow a sunk-cost argument to drive the legislative timetable.

Annex B sets out the CSO tourism spending data that bears on the economic case for removing the cap, including evidence that Irish outbound spending exceeds inbound tourism revenue by more than two to one.

5. Prevention of Future Caps and Chilling Effect

The most consequential provision of the General Scheme is not the removal of the current cap but the prohibition on any future cap being imposed. Planning conditions are one of the principal tools of democratic oversight over development. Permanently extinguishing the power of planning authorities to impose capacity conditions prevents any future government from responding to changed circumstances.

This prohibition creates a chilling effect that extends beyond the passenger cap. Because passenger numbers correlate directly with every environmental impact, any planning condition, noise restriction, wastewater limit, or traffic management requirement that has the practical effect of constraining passenger throughput could be challenged as a de facto passenger cap prohibited by this legislation.

The aviation industry has demonstrated a consistent willingness to litigate against any constraint: DAA obtained a High Court stay against Fingal’s night flight enforcement; eight airlines and DAA challenged the IAA’s inclusion of the cap in slot coordination; the Government introduced this Bill in response to Fingal’s passenger cap enforcement. On this record, a statutory prohibition on capacity conditions would function as a legal shield against any environmental constraint that limits growth.

If the current cap is considered too low, the appropriate response is to raise it to a level supported by evidence and infrastructure, not to abolish capacity limits and prohibit their future imposition.

Annex C sets out the specific EU directives with which unrestricted growth without effective environmental controls would place Ireland in breach, together with the associated fiscal risk.

6. Unresolved Planning Issues

Significant environmental and planning issues at Dublin Airport remain unresolved. These demonstrate the inadequacy of the regulatory framework that would be relied upon to protect communities if the cap is removed.

Every departure from the North Runway since August 2022 has breached Condition 1 of the 2007 ABP planning permission, which requires adherence to the Environmental Impact Statement including flight paths. The approved route was straight ahead over reserved agricultural land; actual paths deviate by 30 to 86 degrees, overflying residential communities never consulted or assessed. Analysis shows the actual routes directly overfly 3,115 houses compared to 934 on the approved route, a 335% increase. However, this number does not include that the tracks pass within 3km of the 4000+ houses in the largest town in East Meath (approximately 16,000 residents). NRTG estimates this amounts to be in excess of a quarter of a million flights in breach of planning law (Annex D).

Fingal County Council identified nine categories of non-compliance in September 2022. It has enforced on two: night flights and the passenger cap. Both enforcement actions were neutralised. DAA obtained a High Court stay against the night flight notice. The Government introduced this Bill in response to the passenger cap enforcement. The remaining seven categories, including the flight paths affecting 30,000 residents, remain unenforced after three and a half years. The Office of the Ombudsman has been investigating Fingal’s failure to enforce since April 2025 and has found Fingal’s responses unsatisfactory (Annex D).

The Court of Justice of the European Union is now considering the passenger cap directly: following a High Court challenge by eight airlines and daa against the IAA’s inclusion of the cap in slot coordination parameters, Case C-857/24 was referred to the CJEU. On 12 February 2026, the Advocate General issued an opinion supporting the IAA on all points, affirming that the cap is a valid operational constraint and that historic slots “are not property rights” (Annex D).

No regulatory body accepts responsibility for these breaches. The IAA, ANCA, the EPA, Meath and Fingal County Councils, the Department of Transport, AirNav Ireland, and DAA each direct complainants elsewhere in a circular accountability vacuum (Annex D).

The Committee should also be aware that what appear to be three independent information sources (the Department of Transport, daa, and AirNav Ireland) are in practice a single source. The Department does not employ flight procedure designers or noise modellers; documentary evidence obtained through AIE requests demonstrates verbatim reproduction of daa language in ministerial correspondence, outsourced drafting of ministerial replies by AirNav, and a claim to this Committee about a completed review that never took place (Annex E).

This is the regulatory framework that would be the sole protection for affected communities if the cap is removed. The Committee should satisfy itself that it is functional before removing the one condition that Fingal has actually attempted to enforce.

7. Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Retain the Power to Set Capacity Limits

The Bill should empower the Minister to revise the passenger cap to a level supported by evidence and infrastructure, but should not prohibit the imposition of future capacity conditions. Planning conditions are a fundamental tool of democratic governance; permanently removing them is disproportionate and unnecessary.

Recommendation 2: Tie Any Cap Increase to Infrastructure Readiness

Any increase should be conditional on: (a) the granting of planning permission for necessary supporting infrastructure; (b) commissioning and operational readiness of that infrastructure; and (c) independent verification that the infrastructure can support the proposed passenger numbers.

Recommendation 3: Remove the Head 12 Climate Exemption

There is no justification for exempting this Bill from the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. If the Bill’s purpose is sustainable development, it should be subject to Ireland’s climate legislation, not exempt from it.

Recommendation 4: Require an Independent Environmental Assessment

Before any order is made, an independent environmental assessment should account for actual flight paths in operation, cumulative noise impact on affected residents, wastewater treatment capacity, water supply impacts, and air quality.

Recommendation 5: Require ANCA Reform Before Cap Removal

ANCA has achieved zero enforcement outcomes in five years while noise exposure has increased by 343%. ANCA should be reformed with genuine independence from Fingal County Council and DAA, adequate resourcing, and enforcement powers before the sole alternative constraint is removed.

Recommendation 6: Address Planning Non-Compliance First

It would be incongruous to remove one planning condition by primary legislation while another on the same development remains in knowing breach. The Bill should require compliance with all existing planning conditions as a prerequisite for any order under the Act.

Recommendation 7: Set the Cap at a Level Supported by Evidence

If the cap is to be raised, it should be set at a specific number supported by infrastructure capacity assessments, independently verified against wastewater treatment, water supply, and transport capacity.

8. Conclusion

The passenger cap is the single enforceable mechanism connecting the scale of Dublin Airport’s operations to the capacity of surrounding infrastructure and environment. It controls noise through flight numbers, wastewater through passenger numbers, road congestion through surface access demand, and water consumption through terminal usage.

Removing it, and prohibiting its future reimposition, without first establishing independently enforced alternatives would leave approximately 30,000 residents and the shared infrastructure of the Greater Dublin Area without any effective constraint on the airport’s growth.

NRTG urges the Committee to recommend amendments that retain capacity limits as a planning tool, tie any increase to verified infrastructure, remove the climate exemption, require independent environmental assessment, reform ANCA, and address existing non-compliance first.

Dublin Airport can and should grow, but sustainably, lawfully, and with genuine accountability to the communities it affects.

North Runway Technical Group www.dublin-north-runway.com info@dublin-north-runway.com

This submission is made in response to the Joint Committee on Transport’s call for submissions on the General Scheme of the Dublin Airport (Passenger Capacity) Bill 2026, published 19 February 2026.

Supporting Annexes

The following annexes provide the detailed evidence referenced in the core submission above.

Annex A: Environmental Proxy Detail

Wastewater Treatment Capacity

Dublin Airport’s sewage enters the same sewer network that serves the communities of North Dublin and parts of Meath, ultimately arriving at the Ringsend Wastewater Treatment Plant for processing. Ringsend is the largest wastewater treatment plant in the State.

Ringsend was originally designed to serve a population equivalent (PE) of 1.64 million
The plant has been persistently overloaded and in breach of the EU Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive
An upgrade costing over EUR 500 million of public money is underway, with a target capacity of 2.4 million PE, but full completion is not expected until 2027
Ireland has faced EU infringement proceedings over the inadequacy of wastewater treatment at Ringsend
In 2025, Dublin Airport processed 36.4 million passengers, 4.4 million in excess of the planning cap

Each of those 36.4 million passengers uses toilet facilities, food preparation facilities, and other water-consuming services at Dublin Airport. Sewage includes not only passenger waste but also foul water tanks from inbound aircraft emptied into the airport’s sewer connection. The wastewater generated enters the same treatment system that is already operating beyond its design capacity.

If the Oireachtas removes the power to limit passenger numbers, no mechanism remains to control the volume of wastewater generated at Dublin Airport and discharged into an already overloaded treatment system. One cannot limit the tonnage of sewage entering the Fingal and Dublin sewer network for treatment at Ringsend if one is forbidden from limiting the number of people using the facilities at Dublin Airport.

Noise Exposure Data

Aircraft noise is the most immediately visible environmental impact of the airport, and is a direct derivative of passenger numbers:

More passengers require more flights
More flights mean more noise events over residential communities
36.4 million passengers in 2025 translated to an estimated 250,000+ commercial aircraft movements
The North Runway alone generates 300+ departures per day over approximately 30,000 residents of East Meath and North Fingal

ANCA (the Aircraft Noise Competent Authority, embedded within Fingal County Council) has published annual reports showing:

A 343% increase in population exposed to 55dB Lnight since the 2019 baseline
A 22% increase in population exposed to 65dB Lden in 2024 alone
Zero enforcement actions in its five years of existence
Zero new noise mitigation measures implemented
daa has refused to submit updated noise modelling to ANCA despite a formal request from ANCA in April 2024, claiming without legal basis that the ABP appeal prevented submission, thereby depriving both the regulator and the public of accurate information on the actual noise impact

If the passenger cap is removed and no future cap may be imposed, the only remaining constraint on noise is ANCA, a body that has demonstrably failed to constrain anything.

Water Supply

Residents of Swords have experienced reduced water pressure attributed to airport demand. The 32 million passenger cap was calculated with reference to domestic water supply capacity alongside other infrastructure constraints.

Annex B: Tourism Spending Deficit

The principal economic argument for removing the cap is that increased airport capacity will bring more tourists and their spending into the Irish economy. The Committee should examine this assumption against the CSO’s own data.

In 2023, according to the CSO Household Travel Survey, Irish residents spent EUR 12.9 billion on outbound travel. In the same period, overseas visitors to Ireland spent approximately EUR 5.5 billion (CSO Inbound Tourism). For every euro that tourists spent in Ireland, Irish residents spent approximately EUR 2.35 abroad.

In 2024, the pattern continued: 62% of departing passengers from Dublin Airport were Irish residents travelling outbound. Ireland’s outbound trip volume grew to 13.7 million trips.

Increasing airport capacity does not selectively increase inbound tourism. Every additional flight that brings tourists in also takes Irish residents out, and the data shows that outbound spending exceeds inbound revenue by more than two to one. Ireland has, in effect, a tourism spending deficit of approximately EUR 6-7 billion per year.

The Committee may wish to consider whether the economic case for removing the cap has been adequately tested against this data. If the objective is to grow tourism revenue in Ireland, the answer may lie in the quality and marketing of the tourism product rather than in the volume of airport throughput. Drilling a bigger hole in a leaking bucket does not fill it faster.

Annex C: EU Law Exposure and Fiscal Risk

Unrestricted airport growth without effective environmental controls will place Ireland in breach of multiple EU obligations:

Directive 2011/92/EU (Environmental Impact Assessment): growth beyond assessed levels without re-assessment
Directive 2002/49/EC (Environmental Noise): failure to implement effective noise management measures at the source
EU Regulation 598/2014 (Balanced Approach to Aircraft Noise): the absence of an independent, effective noise competent authority
Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive: additional load on a treatment plant already in persistent breach
The European Climate Law and Ireland’s Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Acts, from which Head 12 of this Bill explicitly exempts itself
The Aarhus Convention: removal of public participation rights in environmental decision-making affecting communities

NRTG is preparing formal communications to the European Commission (DG Environment and DG MOVE), the European Parliament Petitions Committee, and the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee on Dublin Airport’s environmental impacts. Removing the only enforceable environmental constraint, while prohibiting its future reimposition, would significantly strengthen the basis for those complaints.

The fiscal consequences of non-compliance with EU environmental law are borne by the Irish taxpayer, not by the airlines or airport operator that benefit from unrestricted growth. EU infringement proceedings are lengthy; by the time fines are levied, the political decision-makers who chose this course will have left office, but the cost will remain.

Annex D: Flight Path Non-Compliance, Enforcement, and Accountability

Flight Path Non-Compliance

Every departure from the North Runway since its opening in August 2022 has been in breach of Condition 1 of the 2007 ABP planning permission, which requires adherence to the Environmental Impact Statement including noise footprints and flight paths. With over 300 daily departures from the North Runway, westerly operations (Runway 28R) accounting for the majority of the year, and over three and a half years of operations, NRTG estimates this amounts to in excess of a quarter of a million flights in breach of planning law.

The approved flight path was straight ahead over 6,000 acres of reserved agricultural land
The actual flight paths deviate by 30 to 86 degrees, overflying residential communities never consulted or assessed
GIS analysis shows the approved route directly overflies 934 houses (1.5km corridor either side of the SID centreline); the actual turning routes directly overfly 3,115 houses using the same methodology, a 335% increase. Beyond the directly overflown corridor, the turning departures pass immediately adjacent to Ashbourne, the largest town in East Meath, with 4,132 houses (approximately 16,000 residents) all within 3km of SID centreline tracks. The approved straight-ahead route passes over agricultural land with no equivalent population centre. The noise impact is compounded by the aerodynamics of the turning departure: banked turns reduce climb efficiency, keeping aircraft lower over residential areas than a straight-ahead departure would be at the same distance

Enforcement Timeline

Fingal County Council issued a Warning Letter (ENF 22/166B) citing 9 categories of non-compliance under Section 152 of the Planning and Development Act in September 2022, including explicitly the flight paths. Of those nine categories, Fingal has issued enforcement notices on two:

Night flights (July 2023, requiring compliance with the 65-movement limit within six weeks)
The passenger cap (June 2025, allowing two years to comply)

DAA challenged the night flight enforcement notice in the High Court and obtained a stay. The Government’s response to the passenger cap enforcement was to introduce this Bill. The flight path breach and the remaining five categories of non-compliance identified in Fingal’s own warning letter remain unenforced after three and a half years.

The pattern extends beyond Fingal. When the IAA, in its capacity as slot coordinator, included the 32 million passenger cap in its coordination parameters for Summer 2025 for the first time, eight airlines and daa itself brought a joint High Court challenge ([2024] IEHC 624). The Court stayed the seat cap and referred three questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (Case C-857/24). On 12 February 2026, the Advocate General issued an opinion supporting the IAA on all points: the passenger cap is a valid operational constraint under the EU Slot Regulation, and historic slots “are not property rights, but authorisation to use airport infrastructure.” The CJEU follows the Advocate General’s opinion in approximately four out of five cases.

Fingal identified nine areas of non-compliance. It has enforced on two. Both times, the response was to make the enforcement go away: DAA obtained a High Court stay on the night flight notice, and the Government is now legislating to remove the passenger cap condition entirely. The IAA attempted to account for the cap in slot allocation and was immediately taken to the High Court by eight parties including the State-owned airport operator. The remaining seven categories, including the flight paths that affect 30,000 residents, remain unenforced. The message this sends is that where a State company breaches planning conditions and any body attempts to enforce, either the courts or the Oireachtas will intervene to remove the obstacle rather than require compliance.

Night Flight Breaches

In summer 2023, DAA sold over 8,000 night flight slots against a legal limit of 5,980 under Conditions 3(d) and 5 of the planning permission, approximately 2,000 slots in excess of the limit with an estimated commercial value of EUR 1.1 million.

Fingal issued an enforcement notice under Section 153 of the Planning and Development Act in July 2023 requiring compliance within six weeks. DAA’s response was not to comply but to seek a High Court stay, which was granted in August 2023.

Accountability Vacuum

These breaches persist because no regulatory body accepts responsibility:

Body	Position
IAA	Checks safety compliance only; “no public interest mandate.” When it did act (including the cap in slot coordination), eight airlines and daa brought a High Court challenge.
ANCA	No authority over flight path design or operation
EPA	Claims no role when the environmental source is aviation
Meath County Council	Insists the issue is not its responsibility
Fingal County Council	Issued warning letter in 2022; enforcement notices on two of nine categories only
Department of Transport	No technical aviation expertise; routes queries to AirNav
AirNav Ireland	Chose the route and claims solutions are “too complex”
DAA	Legal Aerodrome Operator but claims it “devolved responsibility” to AirNav

The circular nature of this accountability void is confirmed by the Ombudsman’s own experience. A formal complaint against the Department of Transport for failure to exercise governance responsibilities (OMB-163546-W7H8X9, filed October 2025) was closed in December 2025. The Ombudsman declined to pursue on every element, citing jurisdictional limits and directing the complainant to ANCA, the EU Commission, and other bodies. Each body directs the complainant elsewhere, and the Ombudsman defers to the same pattern.

The Office of the Ombudsman has been investigating Fingal’s failure to enforce the remaining breaches since April 2025 and has found Fingal’s responses unsatisfactory. Fingal has continued to obstruct: citing “unforeseen circumstances” in January 2026 and “change in staff dealing with the matter” in February 2026.

Annex E: Independence of Information Before the Committee

The Department of Transport does not employ flight procedure designers, noise modellers, or aerodrome operations specialists. When the Department responds to this Committee, to parliamentary questions, or to questions from public representatives on aviation matters at Dublin Airport, it is relaying information received from daa and AirNav, not providing independent technical analysis. This is not a criticism of Departmental staff; it is a structural reality. The Department’s aviation policy function depends on the regulated entities for its understanding of the subject matter.

The documentary record, obtained through official correspondence and Access to Information on the Environment requests, demonstrates that this dependency has resulted in the Committee and the Oireachtas receiving information that originated with daa or AirNav, presented under Departmental or ministerial authority as though it were independent government policy.

Three specific instances illustrate the pattern:

Instance 1: Verbatim Reproduction of daa Language

On 4 April 2024, daa wrote to this Committee (JCTC-33-1216) regarding the North Runway flight paths. Six days later, on 10 April 2024, the Minister for Transport’s Private Secretary responded to a public representative on the same issue. The two documents contain verbatim identical language: “complex proposal in the context of Dublin Airport airspace,” “wide range of factors that must be considered,” and “structured and coherent manner, and not in isolation.” The Minister’s response was not an independent assessment; it was daa’s position reproduced under ministerial letterhead.

Instance 2: Outsourced Drafting of Ministerial Replies

AIE responses from AirNav Ireland (released July 2025) reveal that Department of Transport officials asked AirNav to draft the text of ministerial replies to public complaints about North Runway flight paths. The replies sent to constituents over the Minister’s name were composed by the air navigation service provider whose operational decisions were the subject of those complaints.

Instance 3: The False Fiumicino Claim

In the same April 2024 letter (JCTC-33-1216), daa informed this Committee that AirNav Ireland had “recently completed” a review of procedures at Rome Fiumicino airport and that “its findings have been shared with daa,” stating “the output of the review reaffirms that this is a complex proposal.” When NRTG subsequently filed an AIE request to AirNav seeking all work products from this claimed review, AirNav responded (7 July 2025) that no modelling, simulations, technical assessments, internal reports, studies, or presentations had been conducted. The only records were an email from daa requesting a review (1 November 2023), an internal email summarising a single meeting with AirNav’s subcontractor (5 November 2023), and AirNav’s letter to daa (17 November 2023) stating that a proper study would require “considerable resources” and “a significant period of time,” and that AirNav would not proceed without formal instruction and funding from daa. daa never gave that instruction. Despite knowing since 17 November 2023 that no review had been or would be conducted, daa informed this Committee five months later that a review had been “recently completed.”

Conclusion

The effect is that what appears to the Committee to be three independent sources of information (the airport operator, the air navigation service provider, and the Department of Transport) is in practice a single source. daa and AirNav generate the technical narrative; the Department transmits it. The Committee and the Oireachtas have been making decisions, and are now being asked to legislate, on the basis of information that has not been independently verified at any stage.

This Bill proposes to give the Minister the power to revoke environmental planning conditions by ministerial order, with discretionary rather than mandatory consultation. If the Minister’s understanding of aviation operations at Dublin Airport is derived entirely from the entities that operate the airport and benefit commercially from its growth, the Committee should consider what mechanism exists to ensure that power is exercised on the basis of independent evidence rather than advocacy by the regulated industry.