Local residents welcome council request for further details on Dublin Airport expansion plan

Fingal County Council has ruled that airport administrator Daa must provide more than 360 additional pieces of information to the local authority before the application to expand the passenger cap can be fully considered. File picture: Dominic McGrath/PA Wire

Locals living next to Dublin Airport have welcomed a move to request further information regarding a bid to expand the airport’s passenger cap to 40 million people.

They say the move underlines “the importance of transparency”.

Fingal County Council has ruled that airport administrator Daa must provide more than 360 additional pieces of information to the local authority before the application to expand the passenger cap can be fully considered.

The airport administrator has up to six months to supply this information. The planning application will not proceed any further until it does so. 

The perceived need to expand Dublin Airport’s passenger cap from its present level of 32 million people, first approved by An Bord Pleanála in 2006, has been the subject of much political and corporate comment in recent months, with vested interests such as Ryanair insisting the expansion is necessary in order to maintain Ireland’s competitiveness.

Commenting on the county council’s latest decision, a spokesperson for the St Margaret’s-The Ward residents' group said it “welcomes the decision” and said the local authority’s “thorough review” had uncovered “significant deficiencies within the application, including glaring errors, inconsistencies, and omissions among many other serious concerns”.

“This decision underscores the council's commitment to uphold rigorous standards and prioritise the wellbeing of our communities and environment,” they said.

“The decision to request additional information reaffirms the importance of transparency, accountability, and responsible development practices in safeguarding our shared environment and ensuring sustainable growth,” the spokesperson added.

Responding at the weekend to the request for further information, a Daa spokesperson said the decision had been “fully expected” given the sheer scale of the application itself.

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

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

Those outstanding decisions include the outstanding €9.5bn Metrolink train project connecting Dublin city centre and the airport, and the Swords BusConnects decision, among others.

The local authority said the further information it was requesting was necessary to address “inadequacies” in the application itself.

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

It said 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”.