North Runway Technical Group

The noise regulator that isn’t

Story 5 of 13

In 2014 Europe passed a law about airport noise. Before you restrict flights, you must try everything else first, and someone has to decide whether that’s been done: the competent authority. The law says one thing about it above all: it “shall be independent of any organisation which could be affected by noise-related action.”

Independent. Remember that word.

France had already built one, back in 1999: ACNUSA. Its president is appointed by the President of the Republic, and nobody with an interest in the airport business can sit on it. It fines airlines for breaking its rules, 295 fines in 2024, €6.2 million in all, and the money goes to the State, not to ACNUSA.

That’s what independent looks like. Now come to Ireland.

In 2016 the Department of Transport said the job would go to the Irish Aviation Authority, the State’s aviation regulator, the place with the expertise. But the IAA also ran air traffic control, a business that charges the airlines, so it regulated itself and its own customers. Senior counsel advised that a noise regulator inside a body like that couldn’t be independent enough. By late 2017 the IAA was out.

The Environmental Protection Agency? Its first answer, as a Department official reported it, was that it didn’t “see it as a natural fit”, though it was “considering further”. Protecting people from noise pollution. Not a natural fit for the Environmental Protection Agency. Okay then.

The Department filed it as “a sub-optimal option”, kept the Commission for Aviation Regulation as “a fall-back position”, and turned to the planning bodies, the ones “most likely to be best placed to bring existing expertise to bear and to be able to absorb the role”. Absorb the role. Not: be independent.

So, Fingal County Council: the airport’s planning authority. It decides the airport’s planning applications and enforces its planning conditions. Part of its income is the airport’s rates, and the area that takes in the airport, Swords and Santry, pays 43 per cent of all the business rates in Fingal. The European Commission warned the Department to “carefully ensure this independence”.

Fingal had already written to the Department itself, on 2 November 2017. The Council “may not be best placed to act as the ‘Competent Authority’”. Its planning role at the airport was a conflict, and it didn’t have “the requisite competencies”. Try someone without “conflicting responsibilities”, it said.

That’s the chosen regulator, in writing, about itself!

In January 2018 the memo went to Government. Designating Fingal “is considered the best means of giving effect to the Regulation”, and the Departments and Fingal “are in agreement”. Fingal’s letter wasn’t mentioned.

The rest of the memo shows what the new regulator was for. Government was asked to tell daa it acknowledged “the serious commercial risks for the Company” if the runway’s 2007 night-time limits stayed, and to confirm a new law that “will facilitate a review” of them. Under “Cost to Exchequer of Proposal”, the only cost it names is “lower dividends and reduced shareholder value in the daa if there is no change to the operating restrictions”.

Not losing money. Making less extra money. The noise over people’s homes at night wasn’t in the sums.

In November 2018 the Department noted “a perception that Fingal County Council may be conflicted due to the proportion of its income that emanates from the rates paid by daa (8%)”. Then it graded Fingal independent enough anyway.

The 2019 Act made it law. The regulator is Fingal, run by Fingal’s chief executive and Fingal staff: independent of Fingal’s elected councillors, but not of Fingal’s planning department, whose director sits on the same management team.

It’s paid for by a levy on daa, under orders to keep its costs “to a minimum”. It measures with daa’s noise monitors and has none of its own. It couldn’t even see daa’s flight-tracking system until daa agreed to give it access, in November 2022, three months after the new runway opened.

When it does this job it calls itself ANCA. There is no ANCA: no separate body, no board, no legal person. It’s a brand.

With such a carefully crafted structure, what could possibly go wrong?

In August 2022 the North Runway opened, and the departures turned. The noise regulator learned about daa’s so-called Noise Preferential Routes from daa’s post: “ANCA recently became aware of a correspondence issued by daa”. A year later it told us it “was not involved in the design, naming or implementation of these corridors” (story 6 has that one).

Complaints about the noise? The law “did not assign the role of the management of aircraft noise complaints” to it. So daa collects them. The Oireachtas Transport Committee later put it plainly: “No other regulated industry allows the offender to collect the data on which the regulator relies.”

Aircraft noise regulator. Not the corridors. Not the complaints. Got it.

Then daa lodged its infrastructure application, one giant bundle of projects, the passenger numbers among them, and Fingal had to assess the noise. On 1 March 2024 it directed daa to hand over the information it needed. Nothing came. 259 days later Fingal wrote again: could daa please “provide a date”?

daa answered with a menu (story 9 has it), and a line worth keeping: “the IA is not dependent on the NRRA”. In plain English: the infrastructure application doesn’t depend on the Relevant Action, daa’s separate application on the runway’s night-time rules. Hold that thought.

Fingal replied in two short paragraphs. It didn’t pick an option, set a date, or use the enforcement powers the Act gave it. Information was still arriving 630 days after the direction, under daa’s own title: “Initial Response”.

In April 2026 daa explained the delay. The infrastructure application had been “significantly delayed pending a final determination” on the Relevant Action. The same Relevant Action it was “not dependent” on. So that’s clear now, right?

Enforcement actions taken by ANCA? “ANCA has taken no enforcement actions”, the Minister told the Dáil in September 2026.

Meanwhile, on Fingal’s own figures, the people exposed to night noise above 55 decibels went from about 1,500 in 2019 to about 7,500 in 2025. So Fingal proposed to move the starting line: its new noise objective measures from 2023, not 2019. Back in March 2024 we’d asked Fingal whether daa could “set the starting point of ANCA’s investigation by simply flouting the conditions of their planning permission”. Its letter, it replied, “should not be interpreted as indicating a predetermined starting point or outcome”. The starting point it now proposes is 2023: after the runway opened, and after the routes changed.

On Fingal’s proposed noise measures, daa said “we welcome the progress made by ANCA”, and asked, among other things, that a home insulated under the airport’s scheme “should not subsequently be treated as an unmitigated or adversely affected dwelling”. Count fewer of the people, in other words. Fingal “made no changes” to its proposals.

And the IAA? In 2023 a new law moved air traffic control out into a separate company, AirNav, leaving the IAA a regulator with the expertise and no air traffic business. The same law moved the “fall-back position”, the Commission for Aviation Regulation, into the IAA. The reason for passing over the IAA was gone, and the back-up was sitting inside it. Nobody moved the noise job.

In 2026 the Oireachtas Transport Committee found the Fingal set-up “breaches the functional independence requirement” and recommended the French model. The Minister is “satisfied” it meets the EU rules. As for daa paying for it: “It is not reasonable to assert that the exercise of regulatory roles by local authorities might be in some way compromised by their sources of funding.”

The Act has one check: a review of the regulator’s performance, within seven years and every five after that. CAA International is doing it now. Its terms of reference “are not being made publicly available”, the Minister says, and “It is not currently intended to publish the report.”

Except the specification was public all along: it sat on the Government’s tender website in January. Its background section already vouches for Fingal, with an office that “contains the appropriate noise expertise”. Fingal’s own “may not be best placed” isn’t in there. The reviewer is bound to confidentiality, even after the contract ends.

So, here’s where we’ve landed. Europe said the regulator must be independent of anyone affected. France built a body the President appoints, that fines the airlines and keeps none of the fines. Ireland gave the job to the airport’s own planning authority, after it said in writing it “may not be best placed” to do it. It’s paid with the airport’s money and measures with the airport’s monitors. It let the airport answer a direction with a menu, and waited 630 days for the answer. It has never taken a single enforcement action. When night noise reached nearly five times as many people, it proposed to move the starting line.

The one review of whether any of it works is secret, and its brief already asserts Fingal “was best placed to undertake the role”, chosen with “a particular focus on securing the independence requirement”.

Sources
  • Regulation (EU) No 598/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on the establishment of rules and procedures with regard to the introduction of noise-related operating restrictions at Union airports within a Balanced Approach, Article 3(2) (the competent authority “shall be independent of any organisation which could be affected by noise-related action”) and Article 5 (the Balanced Approach). EUR-Lex: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2014/598/oj
  • France, Loi n° 99-588 du 12 juillet 1999 creating the Autorité de contrôle des nuisances sonores aéroportuaires (ACNUSA), now Code des transports, Articles L6361-1 (president appointed by decree of the President of the Republic), L6361-3 (membership incompatible with any interest in the airport or aviation sector) and L6361-13 (fines recovered as debts of the State). Légifrance: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000037290751 and https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/article_lc/LEGIARTI000037290742
  • ACNUSA, Rapport d’activités des services 2024, published 2025 (295 fines in 2024, totalling EUR 6,239,000). ACNUSA website: https://www.acnusa.fr
  • Dáil Éireann, Question 9, 11 October 2017, answer of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport on the competent authority (the September 2016 announcement that the Irish Aviation Authority would be designated; the advice of senior counsel on functional independence; the Irish Aviation Authority “no longer a viable option”). Official report: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2017-10-11/9/
  • Department of Transport, email thread on aircraft noise regulation, 6 October 2017, in which a Department official reports the Environmental Protection Agency’s initial response (it did not “see it as a natural fit, but are considering further”). Released to NRTG under AIE request AIE-2026-014 (Department of Transport), decision of 24 September 2026
  • Department of Transport, note to the Minister, “Update Briefing: State of Play on Noise Regulation 598/2014”, 10 November 2017 (the Environmental Protection Agency option “deemed a sub-optimal option”; the Commission for Aviation Regulation “a fall-back position”; the planning bodies “most likely to be best placed to bring existing expertise to bear and to be able to absorb the role”). Released to NRTG under AIE request AIE-2026-014 (Department of Transport), decision of 24 September 2026
  • Dublin Inquirer, “Efforts continue to take the job of regulating Dublin Airport noise away from Fingal County Council”, 3 July 2024, reporting Fingal County Council’s budget (the Swords-Santry area, “including the airport”, contributes 43 per cent of rates). https://www.dublininquirer.com/efforts-continue-to-take-the-job-of-regulating-dublin-airport-noise-away-from-fingal-county-council/
  • European Commission, Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport, email to the Department of Transport, 2 October 2017 (“I would recommend that you carefully ensure this independence”). Released to NRTG under AIE request AIE-2026-014 (Department of Transport), decision of 24 September 2026
  • Fingal County Council, letter to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, 2 November 2017 (the Council “may not be best placed to act as the ‘Competent Authority’”; it lacks “the requisite competencies”; the role should go to bodies which do not hold “conflicting responsibilities”). Released to NRTG under AIE request AIE-2026-014 (Department of Transport), decision of 24 September 2026
  • Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Memorandum for Government, 26 January 2018 (designating Fingal “is considered the best means of giving effect to the Regulation”; the Departments and Fingal “are in agreement”; “the serious commercial risks for the Company”; legislation that “will facilitate a review” of the 2007 operating restrictions; section 9, “Cost to Exchequer of Proposal”: “lower dividends and reduced shareholder value in the daa if there is no change to the operating restrictions”). Released to NRTG under AIE request AIE-2026-014 (Department of Transport), decision of 24 September 2026
  • Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, “Further Briefing Note for Public Representatives”, Aircraft Noise (Dublin Airport) Regulation Bill 2018, November 2018 (“a perception that Fingal County Council may be conflicted due to the proportion of its income that emanates from the rates paid by daa (8%)”). Released to NRTG under AIE request AIE-2026-014 (Department of Transport), decision of 24 September 2026
  • Aircraft Noise (Dublin Airport) Regulation Act 2019 (No. 12 of 2019): section 3 (Fingal County Council as competent authority, its functions performed by the chief executive; section 3(9), the review of its performance before the seventh anniversary of commencement and every five years after) and section 5 (the levy on the airport authority; costs kept “to a minimum”). Irish Statute Book: https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2019/act/12/enacted/en/html
  • Fingal County Council, Executive Management Team agenda and minute of 22 July 2025, recording the Director of the Aircraft Noise Competent Authority attending with the Director of Planning, released under FOI request 2026/071, 20 April 2026; the Minister for Transport confirmed the released records factually correct in reply to Dáil Question 247 (31818/26), 30 April 2026. Official report: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2026-04-30/247/
  • daa, Dublin Airport aircraft noise pages (the noise monitoring terminals owned and operated by daa, data provided to the competent authority). https://www.dublinairport.com
  • Aircraft Noise Competent Authority and daa, minutes of meeting, 9 November 2022 (“Agreed that daa will provide web access to ANCA for flight track paths from ANOMS”). Released by Fingal County Council under FOI request FOI-2024-046, 28 March 2024; NRTG holds a copy
  • Aircraft Noise Competent Authority (Fingal County Council), letter to daa on the “Indicative Noise Corridors”, 28 February 2023 (“ANCA recently became aware of a correspondence issued by daa”). Released to NRTG under AIE request AIE/2026/014 (Fingal County Council), 15 May 2026, and under AIE request 2615 (daa), on internal review, 7 August 2026
  • Aircraft Noise Competent Authority (Fingal County Council), email to NRTG, Ref. 2024/0119, 13 March 2024 (it “was not involved in the design, naming or implementation of these corridors”). NRTG holds a copy
  • Aircraft Noise Competent Authority (Fingal County Council), email to NRTG, Ref. 2024/159, 8 April 2024 (the legislation “did not assign the role of the management of aircraft noise complaints to ANCA”). NRTG holds a copy
  • Joint Committee on Transport, Report on Pre-Legislative Scrutiny of the General Scheme of the Dublin Airport (Passenger Capacity) Bill 2026, May 2026, ref. 34/JCT/04: recommendation 9 (the current structure “breaches the functional independence requirement of EU Regulation 598/2014”; restructuring along the lines of the French ACNUSA model) and recommendation 10 (“No other regulated industry allows the offender to collect the data on which the regulator relies”). Published on the Committee’s reports page at https://www.oireachtas.ie
  • Aircraft Noise Competent Authority (Fingal County Council), Direction to Provide Information, ref. DI-IA 01/2024, to daa’s planning agent on planning application F23A/0781, 1 March 2024. Released to NRTG under AIE request AIE/2026/012 (Fingal County Council), 6 May 2026
  • Aircraft Noise Competent Authority (Fingal County Council), letter to daa’s planning agent, copied to daa, 15 November 2024, asking daa to “provide a date” for the directed information. Released to NRTG under AIE request AIE/2026/012 (Fingal County Council), 6 May 2026
  • daa, letter to the Aircraft Noise Competent Authority, 29 November 2024 (the options offered; “the IA is not dependent on the NRRA”). Released to NRTG under AIE request AIE/2026/012 (Fingal County Council), 6 May 2026
  • Aircraft Noise Competent Authority (Fingal County Council), reply to daa, 20 December 2024. Released to NRTG under AIE request AIE/2026/012 (Fingal County Council), 6 May 2026
  • Aircraft Noise Competent Authority (Fingal County Council), Draft Regulatory Decision Report on planning application F23A/0781, with appendices, May 2026, published for public consultation (daa’s “Initial Response to ANCA Request for Further Information, November 2025”, cited as a source; ANCA “made no changes to the proposed measures” after daa’s submission). Fingal County Council: https://www.fingal.ie/aircraftnoiseca
  • daa, letter to the Aircraft Noise Competent Authority responding to the notice of proposed noise mitigation measures, 22 April 2026, Appendix I to the Draft Regulatory Decision Report (“we welcome the progress made by ANCA”; consideration of the infrastructure application “was significantly delayed pending a final determination” on the North Runway Relevant Action; an insulated home “should not subsequently be treated as an unmitigated or adversely affected dwelling”). Fingal County Council: https://www.fingal.ie/aircraftnoiseca
  • Dáil Éireann, written answer of the Minister for Transport to Question 268 (68428/26), 29 September 2026 (“ANCA has taken no enforcement actions under Part 4 of the Aircraft Noise (Dublin Airport) Regulation Act 2019”). Official report: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2026-09-29/268/
  • Aircraft Noise Competent Authority (Fingal County Council), A review of the effectiveness of aircraft noise mitigation measures at Dublin Airport during 2025, published August 2026 (people exposed above 55 dB Lnight: 1,533 in 2019, 7,537 in 2025). Fingal County Council: https://www.fingal.ie/aircraftnoiseca
  • Aircraft Noise Competent Authority (Fingal County Council), Noise Abatement Objective for Dublin Airport, May 2026, published for public consultation (reductions measured against 2023). Fingal County Council: https://www.fingal.ie/aircraftnoiseca/noise-abatement-objective
  • NRTG, email to the Aircraft Noise Competent Authority, 13 March 2024 (whether daa could “set the starting point of ANCA’s investigation by simply flouting the conditions of their planning permission”), and the Authority’s reply, Ref. 2024/124, 14 March 2024 (its letter “should not be interpreted as indicating a predetermined starting point or outcome”). NRTG holds copies
  • Air Navigation and Transport Act 2022 (No. 40 of 2022), separating air navigation services from the Irish Aviation Authority into AirNav Ireland and merging the Commission for Aviation Regulation into the Irish Aviation Authority. Irish Statute Book: https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2022/act/40/enacted/en/html. Vesting day 1 May 2023: S.I. No. 218 of 2023, https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2023/si/218/made/en/print
  • Dáil Éireann, written answer of the Minister for Transport to Question 278 (68426/26), 29 September 2026, on recommendation 9 of the Joint Committee’s report (“I am satisfied that the Aircraft Noise Competent Authority (ANCA) fully meets the functionally separated requirements of the EU Regulation”). Official report: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2026-09-29/278/
  • Dáil Éireann, written answer of the Minister for Transport to Question 273 (68425/26), 29 September 2026 (“It is not reasonable to assert that the exercise of regulatory roles by local authorities might be in some way compromised by their sources of funding”). Official report: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2026-09-29/273/
  • Dáil Éireann, written answer of the Minister for Transport to Question 271 (68418/26), 29 September 2026 (the review contract with CAA International Ltd; the terms of reference “are not being made publicly available”; “It is not currently intended to publish the report.”). Official report: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/question/2026-09-29/271/
  • Minister for Transport, Request for Tenders dated 15 January 2026 for consultancy services for the review of the Aircraft Noise Competent Authority under section 3(9)(a) of the 2019 Act, published on eTenders (the background to the requirements: the office “contains the appropriate noise expertise”; Fingal “was best placed to undertake the role as competent authority”, designated “with a particular focus on securing the independence requirement set out in Article 3(2) of the EU Regulation 598/2014”; Appendix 6, the confidentiality agreement, which continues in force after the contract ends). Contract notice: TED 35278-2026, 19 January 2026, https://ted.europa.eu/en/notice/-/detail/35278-2026
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