Council seeks further details from Daa on Dublin Airport passenger expansion plan

Dublin Airport’s bid to expand its passenger cap to some 40m passengers has been rebuffed.

Dublin Airport’s bid to expand its passenger cap to some 40m passengers has been delayed after a local authority requested further information while criticising the quality of data it had been given.

Fingal County Council has asked airport administrator Daa for further information in a 407-page update to the case which suggested the application may have been made prematurely given that a number of crucial planning decisions concerning the airport have yet to be delivered.

The local authority said the further information is necessary to address “inadequacies” in the application.

In expanding on those deficiencies, the council noted the “extensive typographical errors and incorrect cross-referencing” in Daa’s application, which was lodged last December.

It said that those errors, together with the “scale and complexity of the proposals”, limit its ability to “draw conclusions on the assessments required to fulfil its statutory function”.

However, the local authority also noted that the “proposed intensification” of use of Dublin Airport is considered “acceptable in principle”, but added that “further consideration of this application” could not happen until the deficiencies in the data provided are addressed.

The local authority has come under pressure in recent weeks from vested interests to approve the application, with business leaders such as Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary suggesting that the current cap of 32m passengers per annum is stymying the expansion of the airport, and could dissuade further foreign investment in Ireland.

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In coming to its decision, Fingal County Council said that, as had been noted in the pre-planning process, it has “concerns” regarding the “prematurity” of the application given key infrastructural planning decisions have not yet been made.

Those outstanding decisions include an appeal to An Bord Pleanála regarding a "relevant action" application made by Daa, approval for the €9.5bn Metrolink train project connecting Dublin city centre and the airport, and the Swords BusConnects decision, among others.

Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary suggested that the cap of 32m passengers per annum is stymying the expansion of the airport.

The council said that “concerns arise” about Daa’s “efforts to address uncertainties” in terms of surface access, noise, air quality, air traffic, and fleet modernisation.

In terms of the environmental impact assessment performed by Daa for its application, the local authority said: “There is insufficient information and/or lack of detail... to allow the planning authority to come to a reasoned conclusion on the significant effects of the proposed development on the environment.”

Responding to the request for further information, a Daa spokesperson said the decision had been “fully expected”.

Noting that the bid to remove the cap is “the largest planning application ever lodged in the State”, they said that Daa “welcomes the opportunity to provide this additional information”.

The Irish Examiner recently revealed that Dublin Airport had exceeded the current cap of 32m passengers for the whole of 2023, a fact then corroborated by Daa’s official published statistics which stated the full-year figure had been 33.5m.