Robert Troy (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's clarification of the existing insulation scheme, that between 180 and 200 houses qualify under the voluntary scheme and also under the scheme prescribed as a condition of a previous planning application. We are still concerned to ensure that houses that will be affected by the operation of the new runway will be able to avail of the same home insulation schemes as the existing 180 to 200 houses. That is why we brought forward our amendment on Committee Stage. We accepted on Committee Stage the advice of the Minister's officials that our amendment was very broad and left the potential for people in places far from the airport to make applications to be included in the scheme.

That is not what our intention was. Our intention was that for people who would be within the flight contours, the existing scheme would be taken out of the control of the DAA and put in the place of the responsible authority, and I accept that is done, and that future noise mitigation measures could be recommended by the independent competent authority to expand that scheme more widely from the existing 180 to 200 houses. The amendment as the Minister is proposing does not quite clearly get that and we have a concern on that.

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