Irish Examiner view: Rushed fixes often lead to unexpected problems

Removal of Dublin Airport's passenger cap should be examined from several  perspectives

The importance of Dublin Airport to Ireland’s economy must be acknowledged, but a significant infrastructural consideration seems oddly absent from this discussion. File picture: Dominic McGrath/PA

The Cabinet has agreed to scrap the Dublin Airport passenger cap, which is set at 32m passengers per year.

Transport minister Darragh O’Brien sought approval for laws granting him the power to either revoke or amend that cap, and the rationale for doing so is the “strategic national importance” of Dublin Airport and the necessity to ensure Ireland remains connected to global markets.

The move will be welcome news for the airport operator DAA, which has long called for the cap to be lifted. It believes the number needs to be increased to 40m passengers per year.

This development should be examined from several different perspectives. The obvious starting point is how this leap of 25% in annual passenger numbers using one of our airports can be reconciled with our climate change commitments and our desire to reduce our carbon footprint. If the climate emergency is as urgent as we are told, then this development will hardly serve our purposes in combating that emergency, to put it mildly.

There is also an ominous familiarity to this rush to legislate in order to deal with a pressing issue. The news of abolition of the cap coincided neatly with figures being released which show the number of homes impacted by defective concrete blocks has risen to around 9,500, data which emerged ahead of Oireachtas committee meetings on the defective concrete blocks scheme.

This scheme aims to remedy the results of light regulation, sparse enforcement, and hasty legislation during the Celtic Tiger era. It should serve as a warning to those who favour a sweeping increase in Dublin Airport passenger numbers, because unintended consequences can cast a long shadow.

Finally, the importance of Dublin Airport to Ireland’s economy must be acknowledged, but a significant infrastructural consideration seems oddly absent from this discussion.

Increased investment in and use of Cork and Shannon Airports would seem an obvious course of action which would help with regional development, balanced growth, and a more equitable spread of emissions. There are alternatives to the runways of north Co Dublin.

Sign of strains on civil services

As reported here this week by Ann Murphy, many couple are facing significant delays as they await appointments for their ‘marriage of convenience’ interviews.

These are interviews held in circumstances where at least one of the people intending to be married is from outside the EU. The interviews are intended to ensure that the proposed marriage is not being undertaken to help one or both parties with their immigration status in Ireland.

Such interviews are required after a notice of marriage appointment and they are carried out by civil registrars under agreed national procedures. Without an interview taking place, those couples cannot obtain a marriage licence.

However, as reported, some couples are now waiting over a year for such appointments — or up to 18 months in some parts of the country — which is having an understandable impact on their wedding plans.

This seems an unconscionably long waiting period for such appointments, and it is hardly surprising to learn that some of those affected by the delays are considering marriage overseas due to their frustration. While procedures must be in place to ensure Irish citizenship is not exploited by those seeking only the benefits of our passport, this process could surely be improved — even if that means the temporary reallocation of administrative staff to clear the backlog of appointments.

This log jam can also be seen as further evidence of how much pressure our civic procedures and institutions are under. Recently there were reports of funerals in Waterford being delayed because post mortem coroner services in the area had been halved. What had been a seven-day-a-week service by local coroners has been replaced by locum pathologists coming from the UK three days a week.

The sheer increase in population on the island is being felt in many different sectors, but this week’s news shows us how our public services are feeling the pressure at almost every point in the system.

Exposed to risk of cyberattacks

The widespread use of ‘dodgy boxes’, which give users illegal access to various TV and streaming services, appears to have came back to bite some of those using those devices.

In recent months, authorities had already warned of the perils of using such devices, linking their spread to organised crime. Now consultants Grant Thornton have issued an explicit warning that some people’s home devices, ‘dodgy boxes’ included, have been compromised following a large-scale global cyberattack.

A spokesperson for the consultants said yesterday that those behind the cyberattack could exploit default passwords, outdated software, or unpatched vulnerabilities “to engineer highly believable phishing messages. For example, posing as a streaming provider with a prompt to review a show you have just watched. At that point, the scam is no longer random and much more believable.”

The use of other devices makes this situation all the more challenging in the era of internet of things connectivity, given the potential for one smart device to provide access to others. Accessing a home’s devices through a ‘dodgy box’ is surely a legal and insurance minefield: What comeback or protections is someone entitled to if devices in their home are subject to a cyberattack facilitated by another device — illegal and unregulated — within the home?

Perhaps such consumers should consider paying their streaming bills like everyone else.

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