Mr. Ronan Gallagher:

With regard to the planning piece, the decision to go back to the previous arrangement whereby the Dublin Airport Authority is not involved in the strategic development piece may seem, on the face of it, to be counter intuitive but is due to the fact that An Bord Pleanála is the appeals body under our planning structures. We did not want the situation to arise where An Bord Pleanála would be dealing with the planning application first time out and would also be the appeals body for that application. We had to do it through Fingal. In terms of whether it extends the timelines, we have been advised that it will not affect them materially. Even if it does affect them, we can feed that into our planning process and provide for it.

In terms of the night time flights, the Deputy is no doubt aware of the existing permission for a second runway. It includes operating restrictions which the DAA has said are deeply problematic for the airport in terms of its long-term development. In that context, the Bill proposes to allow for those operating restrictions to be run back through this new regulatory regime to see if there are alternative ways of mitigating noise at the airport. At the moment, those restrictions exist until such time as an alternative is found. The question of whether there is another way of managing noise at the airport that is not as prohibitive as the current operating restrictions will be posed through this Bill. That is part of what we are trying to provide for here.