Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for tabling the question. It is the third time I have answered it today and I will try to answer it in a manner which is consistent with the way I have answered the other two. Deputies Brendan Ryan and Dessie Ellis asked the same question.

I hope to meet the DAA next week or the week after.

A meeting was supposedly going to be arranged today. The issue of the second runway and the effect it will have on the residents of the area is something I will raise as a priority. I said in my earlier response that I do not regard it as the right of a State monopoly simply to destroy or damage the lives of individual citizens or groups of individual citizens because it is more powerful. It is only fair that, as the argument is weighted very strongly in favour of the DAA, the position of those residents should be given strong consideration by the State and by the authority itself and I intend to make strong representations to the authority on behalf of the residents. Obviously, it is my view and probably the view of every Member that it would be wrong to stand in the way of the second runway because of the great benefits it will bring to the country and because of the necessity for it. Given 25 million passengers go through the airport every year, it must go ahead but that does not mean the authority can ride roughshod over the sensibilities or the lives of those who live in the area. Those who represent them have a strong case. They will obviously have to have either the necessary insulation from noise, which is impossible to guarantee, or adequate compensation for the extraordinary disturbance to their lives this will cause.

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