Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I know the Minister and his officials have been available generally to assist us in this regard. While I was not present for the Minister's speech, I have read it thoroughly. There is probably not a lot I can say that has not been said by others but I want to echo, in particular, aspects of the contributions of Senators Craughwell and Norris.

Like others, I have been in touch with people who feel directly concerned about this. We are all aware of how important our economic future and well-being is to the country and how central to our economic and social and cultural life Dublin Airport is. This is a classic case of the hard choices that legislators have to make when trying to identify and follow through on the common good, which is to say, to promote business, enterprise and the proper and effective functioning of an airport, on the one hand, while at the same time ensuring people's welfare and that those most directly affected are properly heard and their needs properly addressed.

Like others, I have been in touch with people living in St. Margaret's and I want to reflect some of the concerns they continue to have. While they are supportive of the developments and of the new runway at the airport, they feel their interests are not being sufficiently protected and they still do not feel sufficiently consulted around mitigation measures regarding noise pollution, traffic and so on. In general, they are not impressed by what is proposed to be done for them in terms of insulation schemes, buy-out schemes, adjustment to flight paths and, possibly, sound barriers, which are all part of the balanced approach the Minister described in his speech.

Senator Craughwell brought out an important point about the value of houses, where people would be allowed to relocate, and Senator Clifford-Lee has asked questions about whether the baseline should be the value of the house or the replacement value. Even there, I wonder can this properly address the difficulty, given the housing situation, of finding accommodation that is equivalent to what people already have in terms of transport links, quality of life and all the other criteria. More needs to be done and said in that area.

Of course, there is the question of the independence of Fingal County Council as the independent noise authority for the airport. The Minister said what he said and he is clearly of the view there is not a conflict of interest. However, the issue remains of serious concern to residents, who point out, as others have in the House, that the income in the form of rates directly from the airport, and from various businesses servicing the airport, means it simply cannot be an independent player in all of this. I was thinking recently of the debate in Britain whereby it is proposed to split up the big four accountancy and auditing firms, and to separate out the consulting side of the house from the accounting and auditing side of the house, but the question remains whether it is really possible to get completely solid Chinese walls. The Minister went to considerable pains in his speech to say there is not a conflict of interest yet I did not hear him use the word "independent" in the context of the noise regulation office. Can it be ensured that there would be absolutely no chilling effect on the role of the noise regulation office, having regard to the financial and other connections with the airport and related businesses?

With regard to the number of night-time flights, the Minister is not on board with An Bord Pleanála, which has restricted the number of night-time flights to 65 movements per night. While I understand the Minister's position, we cannot reckon enough with the concerns of people. We had a similar debate in the context of people affected by wind turbines and we discussed just how destructive this can be of people's quality of life. It really is an important issue.

With regard to insulation schemes, I want to quote my correspondent. She pointed out the DAA is not proposing to allow heat exchange systems to be installed in houses and this effectively means that if people want to sleep at night, they cannot open their windows. Think back to last summer, when opening your windows was a necessity, not a luxury, she says, yet this is something facing residents due to inadequate nature of the insulation programme on offer. She again decries the lack of negotiation, as she sees it.

In recent times, we had all sorts of talk about what the World Health Organisation had to say and how important it was to heed it. The Minister himself talked about the noise regulator operating on an evidence base. If the WHO says that certain levels of noise are dangerous, do we take that seriously or not? That is a very fundamental question at the heart of all of this.