Dáil debates

Wednesday, 15 May 2019

Aircraft Noise (Dublin Airport) Regulation Bill 2018: From the Seanad (Resumed)

 

5:15 pm

Photo of Clare DalyClare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Some of the points I made on the Bill were general in nature and some of the points of correction Deputy Darragh O'Brien raised with me were correct. I was trying to find my bearings in this body of work. In line with Deputy Broughan, some of my comments were about the overall Bill and not about this particular amendment.

On the amendment, while it is probably better to have it in the legislation, that does not negate the fact that we have abdicated our responsibility by agreeing in other parts of the Bill to allow Fingal County Council to be the competent authority. We have weakened the legislation by adopting this amendment as a kind of democratic check. We are making it out to be a great achievement for the local community that the Dublin Airport Authority will not now decide upon these important matters of insulation. That argument sounds valid and is fair enough but it is defeated by the decision to give that responsibility to Fingal County Council given the conflict of interest involved, which Deputies have spelt out ad nauseamin the course of this debate. In case there is any doubt remaining, it is correct that it is better to have this amendment in the legislation. The overall position, however, is that we are doing this in the context of a conflict of interest, which means the measure offers a weak form of protection. The argument that it will be a panacea is weakened by the decision to select Fingal County Council as the competent authority.

I was certainly not making the points about the removal of the restrictions in the context of this amendment. It is an open secret, however, that the Dublin Airport Authority, in all of its correspondence to us, informed us that it will seek to overturn those night restrictions once this legislation is in place. Perhaps I am reading this incorrectly but the problem with this amendment in that context is that it only applies to changes after the Bill has been passed. How will the issue be addressed for people who are impacted now? I am not sure how that will be done and I would like to hear more on that issue. My main intent was to correct that point.

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