Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Everyone's name is on this. This is the section that deals with who should be the competent authority. It is a key part of the legislation and this is probably the most substantial group of amendments before us. The key job of transposing EU Regulation No. 598/2014 is to establish a competent authority which will be appointed to set up the rules and regulations for dealing with the impact of aircraft noise in line with the balanced approach. The authority in the European Union is very clear on what the basis of the body should be. I reiterate it states:

The competent authority responsible for adopting noise-related operating restrictions should be independent of any organisation involved in the airport’s operation, air transport or air navigation service provision, or representing the interests thereof and of the residents living in the vicinity of the airport. This should not be understood as requiring Member States to modify their administrative structures or decision-making procedures.

A couple of years after saying that the IAA would be the body which would carry out this function, the Minister has done a massive somersault and is now saying that it will not be the IAA, but will be Fingal County Council. There are several different solutions proposed as to how we should deal with this.

The Minister thinks it should be Fingal County Council and we will address that point in a minute because there are alternatives. The first point I want to make is that we have to see what Ireland is doing in the context of what other countries are doing. The Minister's proposition to appoint Fingal County Council not only does not meet the requirement for independence, as outlined by Deputy Munster, but is completely at variance with what every single other jurisdiction in the European Union has done. We know that eight member states are not required to bring this in because their airports are too small. Another eight member states have designated the Civil Aviation Authority, the equivalent of the Irish Aviation Authority, IAA. Those eight member states did not seem to have a problem with independence and that is the biggest group of other member states. Five member states have designated a Government Department. Two members states have designated multiple bodies, including a Government Department and a national agency. Two member states have not completed it yet. Three member states have designated one or more local, regional or federal authorities. The stance Ireland has taken is utterly bizarre. It is unheard of for a local authority to take on the national regulatory responsibility of a competent national authority.

I will not labour the points made by Deputy Munster but the residents know, as does everybody, from dialogue with Fingal County Council that so much of the council's rate base and influence comes from the DAA that it impairs the council's independence and there is no question or doubt about that. I have seen the Minister's responses on that, where he says it is not really 20% and is only 8% when all the income streams are taken in. That is splitting hairs because it is quite obvious that the DAA is the biggest payer to the income of Fingal County Council. The council granted the original permissions for the airport runway and so on, so it is safe to say that not only is it not independent but it could never even be perceived to be independent. There is a huge problem with Fingal County Council.

I do not want to repeat the Minister's words back to him, but in answers to parliamentary questions over recent years, he told us that the IAA was the best show in town and all that good stuff, and he is now standing that on its head. The reports that the Department gave us as to why it had to be Fingal County Council and why the other organisations were not suitable did not add up. Nobody is suggesting the IAA but the Minister does not seem to have taken on board the game-changing recommendation of the Commission for Aviation Regulation, CAR. That is the favoured choice of residents. It is not their exclusive choice because the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, may also be appropriate but most groups would prefer the CAR as the alternative to Fingal because the goalposts have now moved with the decision to split the IAA and the division of the commercial and regulatory functions.

The State is now on the cusp of bringing forward other legislation to have one single regulator for aviation which is a highly specialist and technical area. We could bring it all under the one remit and the Minister chose not to include aircraft noise, a key regulatory function, under that brief. It does not make sense. The only answer we got as to why it was not suitable was that they do not have the capacity at the moment. It is recognised that Fingal does not have the capacity at the moment. The EPA would not have the capacity for dealing with this. It is a highly specialist area. The reason it fits better coming in under the CAR, with its aviation expertise, is precisely because the people who regulate aviation are highly skilled technicians. They are of a pay grade and a level of expertise that is not replicated elsewhere. It is not replicated in the EPA and it is certainly not replicated in Fingal County Council. Fianna Fáil's dressed up version of Fingal County Council is still Fingal County Council. The suggestion that the council would set up an aircraft noise regulation division is not sufficiently independent from Fingal County Council.

In addition, an area set up solely for airport noise regulation will not be sufficiently busy to attract and maintain the level of expertise necessary to support this type of venture, if my point is understood. That is critical if it is just airport noise. In this group of amendments one of the solutions is the Fianna Fáil idea of Fingal County Council setting up an independent noise regulator. It is important to state, first, that the perceived link with Fingal is still there as it is still under Fingal County Council. An office to the side, sitting in Fingal but called the airport noise regulator, will not be working morning, noon and night. It will not have a critical mass of work or enough work to sustain the level of expertise necessary to be enticed into this outfit. The only arena where one could get that is in the CAR, and it is not there at present. Indeed, it is nowhere now. However, that is the natural home for it and we must be clear about that. Most of the residents' groups favour this as the alternative.

There was openness to the idea of the EPA possibly being considered as well. It is not hard and fast but in terms of aviation expertise, the EPA is not really at the races. Residents are highly aggrieved at this situation. The Minister reports in other replies to parliamentary questions that the EPA has said it is not up to the job. That is not true. Residents have gone to the trouble of getting freedom of information responses regarding the EPA and its involvement in this, and there has been no substantial dialogue with the EPA in terms of whether it might want this function. It is not true to say, as has been said, that the EPA does not want the gig. The records show that it has not been asked about the gig. It is important to put that on the record.

It is also important to record that concern has been expressed about the fact that the IAA submission to the recent airport noise plan by Fingal County Council was a little too deferential to the existing planning restrictions linked to the new runway. It made the point that it was concerned about the operating restrictions. That is beyond its remit. This should not be the basis of the concern. The concern is about the best way forward for reducing the impact of noise, not the airport restricting operations even though there is a knock-on in that regard.

For all those reasons the CAR is the best fit. That is entirely in line with what most of the other member states have done. We are setting up a new regulatory authority. Everything is changing. The impact on climate change, for example, means aircraft regulation is something that will have to be taken a great deal more seriously, and the impact of noise is a key component of that. Leaving it out does not make any sense. The points as to why it should not be Fingal County Council have been well made. As to what else, the CAR is the best fit simply because of the technical expertise aspect and that level on the food chain, as it were.