Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Again, I state it is not a matter of Mr. Jacobs's opinion. It is a fact that the planning authority, Fingal County Council, has found the DAA to be in breach. It is not a question of whether the DAA is or is not, the Judiciary can make its decision later, but today, the DAA is in breach of a planning condition.

I want to address very briefly the fact that on a number of occasions, before the committee and on television and radio, Mr. Jacobs said that the homes are overflown "unexpectedly". We know the DAA has employed a contractor, as it is perfectly entitled to do, to design a flight path. The chosen contractor was AirNav Ireland. Could any other organisation with the relevant expertise have been employed to do the assessment Mr. Jacobs is talking about, to determine whether flight paths could be changed? This would be to improve the DAA's capacity to get planes in and out of the airport, while impacting the smallest number of people possible. I accept entirely the point made by Mr. McLean that moving a flight path might not benefit everybody.