James Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Leas-Chathaoirleach to let me know when I have one minute left. I welcome the Minister and I welcome the Bill. I thank Senator O'Mahony for the opportunity to take the Bill on behalf of Fine Gael and the Government. He is tied up in the sports committee. There is concern in the constituency of Dublin Fingal about this, in St. Margaret's and Portmarnock. The people of Ireland and Fingal need a regulator but we also need our airport as it is critical to the economic future of Ireland and Fingal. I join with Senator Craughwell in hoping the Minister can get his officials to meet with community groups to address their concerns.

The Bill is a consequence of EU Regulation No. 598/2014 and its transposition into Irish legislation. It proposes the appointment of Fingal County Council as regulator. In the short time I have open to me, I cannot go through all the notes I have but there was concern within the council itself as to whether it was suitable as an authority for noise regulation. The council wrote a letter and all the issues, including that of independence, were fully examined and worked through using legal advice. Issues of competencies and resources were also addressed at the time and they were all examined, discussed and addressed before bringing the recommendation of Fingal County Council to Government in January 2018.

In October 2018, Fingal County Council issued a statement clarifying that, while it did previously express concerns about taking the role, having worked with the Department those concerns had been satisfactorily addressed. Fingal County Council added that it had a track record of performing the role of competent authority in areas such as planning and environment and does it in an independent and transparent way. Fingal is best placed for the role of noise regulator as it has existing responsibility for environmental regulation and for planning, as stated. Furthermore, it has experience of managing large and effective public consultations and there is no other suitable body that combines all the attributes of Fingal County Council in this respect.

I remind Senator Craughwell that Fingal County Council is elected by the people of Fingal. Perhaps the airport will have concerns about a conflict of interest there. The Senator suggests that it is conflicted because its rates are collected by Fingal but is he suggesting that the Medical Council is conflicted because all its fees are paid for by doctors, even though it has a lay majority?

The previous speaker acknowledged that the amendment put down by Deputy Clare Daly would have severe consequences for jobs at Dublin Airport and the surrounding communities. The World Health Organization guidelines that were inserted in the Airport Noise (Dublin Airport) Regulation Bill 2018 are just that - guidelines. I understand they have not been fully assessed by Europe yet and are not in operation at any international airport in Europe, or any other airport in the world to my knowledge. According to Airports Council International, ACI, the WHO guidelines will not be attained or reached by infrastructural changes at the top 20 European airports. The WHO recognises that the limited evidence base on the health effects of environmental noise interventions is thinly spread. I fully agree with this finding and strongly support the WHO’s call for further research on the effectiveness of interventions. The foreword to the WHO document states that they are not standard or legally binding criteria. They are guidelines that can only be attained by severely curtailing flying activity, according to the ACI report addressing the future of aviation noise.

Dublin Airport employs over 19,000 people directly, 80% of them in Fingal, and a further 98,000 are indirectly employed in related industries. In total, 47,200 people are employed in Fingal as a result of economic activity at Dublin Airport. Deputy Daly’s amendment would threaten the livelihoods of tens of thousands of families in the Fingal area. If passed, Deputy Daly’s amendment would necessitate a massive relocation of people from areas close to Dublin Airport. If similar measures were enforced in other European city airports such as Madrid Airport, this would mean an exclusion zone of 40 km, and it would mean 70 km at Frankfurt. To achieve the WHO guidelines in Frankfurt would mean 890 flights a day would be cut to ten. It is clearly not tenable.

I believe we need a more measured approach to noise pollution. Dublin Airport is going to be even more important to Ireland as we move into a post-Brexit space. For every 1 million passengers an additional 1,200 new jobs are created. Dublin Airport has thrived and grown under successive Fine Gael-led Governments and this Minister, with passenger numbers growing from 18 million per annum in 2010 to an expected 32 million this year.

I understand the very real concerns in certain local parts of Fingal regarding noise from Dublin Airport. That is why we need a noise regulator to look at best practice internationally. It is to protect the citizens of Fingal from unnecessary noise pollution. I support the appointment of a noise regulator, so residents and, indeed, businesses can have a port of call to seek independent assistance if there are problems with noise pollution in their area. However, we need to remove this unrealistic amendment from the proposed legislation and let the airport noise regulators get on with designing bespoke, realistic solutions for noise regulation in the vicinity of Dublin Airport and protect both people from excessive noise and jobs and economic activity in Fingal. There is potential for a further 18,000 new jobs at Airside in Swords, which is only eight minutes from the airport. Fingal County Council and IDA Ireland will be marketing this to large foreign direct investment companies which require an airport link, just like Kellogg, which has moved into new offices at Airport Central at Dublin Airport.

I will be supporting the Minister’s amendment to remove this unrealistic proposal from the legislation, which would put Fingal's regional plans, and indeed national development plans, at risk. As the Minister said, this amendment would pre-empt the outcome of an EU policy making process. It is not a question of whether the guidelines are right or wrong, it is about what is possible and implementable and what the timeframe and cost would be. It would also pre-empt the work of the noise regulator, which needs to be free to set what it believes to be the right levels, etc.

I welcome the Bill and commend it to the House. We urgently need a noise regulator to protect citizens from noise pollution.