Imelda Munster (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I was fearful that the Minister had originally said he thought it made sense for the IAA to be the noise regulator, but the advice was that that would have been open to legal challenge. I have asked how we can have confidence that the Minister now feels it should be Fingal County Council which has no obvious or specific expertise in this specialised area other than the in-house expertise any local authority has. In circumstances in which the local authority receives a certain percentage of its funding from airport traffic, it could be compromised as an independent regulator and decision-maker. Surely, the body tasked with making decisions should not in receipt of any funding.