Paul Donnelly (Dublin West, Sinn Fein)

I thank the witnesses for the presentations. I live about 700 yd or 800 yd away from the drone base in Millennium Park. I walk the park every day, so I see the drones every single day. There are currently six drones - they added one in the past couple of weeks - and because I am not part of the flight path, it does not directly come over our house unless it is delivering next door to us but it comes in that general direction. We hear them every day.

To echo some of the previous questions, there is a real concern in Dublin West around the delivery service. No one has any issue with the Garda, Civil Defence, the delivery of medicines or defibrillators and all these things. They are really good and really useful. The huge concern is not just where it is delivering now and the six to ten drones that are currently delivering commercially at the moment, but it is around the way this will impact into the future. They are currently impacting now. If you are in your house and your windows are closed, you might not hear them. If you are in your garden, if you are right next door or someone is getting a delivery two to three gardens away, it is very noisy. There is no denying that. I do not know whether the witnesses have heard them in their gardens but they can be heard.

I have a couple of questions on it. Noise is a massive issue but privacy is another one and I will go back to a very serious incident that happened several years ago with gardaí. There was CCTV footage of a very distraught person who was suffering serious mental health issues. It was recorded by a phone from the CCTV. That was shared on WhatsApp and was sent widely. It was fairly well nationally and internationally known. My real concern is that the potential for that to happen. If you are in your garden and someone takes a video of you from their drone, that is an issue. I know it is a GDPR issue and not necessarily related to this. Does Manna have exclusive use of the airspace? We were told Fingal County Council wanted to put up a drone in the Millennium Park and were refused because Manna had exclusive use of that airspace. Is there a maximum number of drones allowed by the IAA for the likes of this delivery service? If Manna decided tomorrow it wanted to put 100 up in the sky, is there a maximum?

In some other countries, you have ownership of the space above your property. I know Manna will say that you have an option to opt out of it. Do we have any ownership of the airspace or the height above our property?