Advert for €2m full-body scanners

DUBLIN Airport Authority has advertised for the supply of up to €2 million worth of full body scanners to the main terminal in Dublin Airport.

The authority has advertised for the scanners under a six-year framework agreement and says the requirement for them “is particularly driven by recent events in the aviation industry”.

“This may be followed at the discretion of the DAA by the rollout to any, all or none of the other remaining DAA terminals in Dublin, Cork and Shannon,” it said.

The DAA has set February 15 as a deadline for expressions of interesting in supplying the equipment.

It is understood that there is no intention to take delivery of the scanners any time soon.

The DAA is understood to be setting up a framework under which, if aviation regulations or the security situation changes it will be able to take delivery of the scanners quickly.

The DAA is not in charge of airport security here. That is a matter for the Department of Transport.

Since the September 11 attacks, there have been huge efforts to tighten aviation security but only in the last few months have full body scanners come to the fore.

Just after Christmas, Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport decided to install the 17 scanners it first bought two years ago but was unable to activate after receiving EU advice that there were privacy and human rights implications.

The move came after Am Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, managed to board a Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit from Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport on Christmas Day carrying explosives but failed to successfully detonate them.

On January 3, the British Prime Minister confirmed the British Aviation Authority were already ordering new full body scanners as part of a new regime of tightened airport security and would have them in place as soon as possible.

There has been a significant level of opposition to the scanners as they provide images of passengers’ bodies under their clothes.