Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I disagree with some of the information Mr. Jacobs shared in his presentation. On that basis, and not to have a ballyrag with him here, I ask him for a complete list of all the public consultation events that have taken place in recent years, including the dates and venues, etc., with people in the areas he then felt would have been impacted by the plans for the new runway. May I also have a copy of the catchment map of the 200 houses designated in the catchment area as requiring insulation? The reality of what has happened, notwithstanding what Mr. Jacobs has said about things changing since February when I do not think they have, is very different for people. I would be grateful if Mr. Jacobs could supply that information to the committee.

I want to talk about the cap, which is what I thought we were here to talk about in the main. It is interesting that when Mr. Jacobs talks about managing the cap, he talks about it in the light of how he interprets the planning application. It is clear to me and to many others that on the basis of the planning permission, which was based on the most recent infrastructural development on behalf of the DAA, the combined capacity of terminals 1 and 2 is 32 million passengers. It does not state anything about surface access or only counting transit passengers once and not twice, or excluding transfer passengers. It states that the entire capacity of terminals 1 and 2 is 32 million passengers. The subcategories on which the planning application and cap are based have very little to do with the road in and out of the airport, although that is important. The issue is to do with drainage, noise, the buildings and the environmental impact statement, EIS, conducted at the time. It is also to do with parking and water. There is a plethora of conditions and conditionality around where that figure of 32 million came from. Mr. Jacobs is telling us he is managing the 32 million cap, when we all know we have gone well over that figure and probably did months ago, as we did in 2019, based on an interpretation. Fingal County Council has one interpretation and Mr. Jacobs has another. We are probably fooling ourselves. Some of the transit passengers who come in never leave the airport, which may be grand, but they still have to access the water and the drainage. They impact noise levels and all of the other considerations. Many transit passengers do leave the airport, even if only for a few hours. If Fingal County Council were to tell Mr. Jacobs tomorrow that the cap means all customers, where stands the capacity this year to the end of October and how does it compare to 2019?