Planning Authority receives Further Information from daa

Fingal County Council today received documentation from the daa, the Dublin Airport Authority, in response to its request last February for 85 items of Further Information relating to planning application F23A/0781. This is an infrastructure development planning application for Dublin Airport which also includes an application to raise the annual passenger limit to 40million passengers per annum.

The response submitted by daa today will now be assessed by the Planning Authority in accordance with national, regional, and local planning policy including the Fingal Development Plan and the Dublin Airport Local Area Plan. If the documentation received today results in a significant change to what was originally submitted last December, the Planning Authority may be obliged to put the application back out to public consultation.

A decision on this planning application is not subject to the same timelines associated with a conventional planning application, as the Aircraft Noise Competent Authority (ANCA), in its role as the regulator of aircraft noise, formed the opinion on 17 January 2024 that the application requires an assessment of the need for a noise related action. Daa has yet to submit the outstanding information which was requested by ANCA in March 2024 for this assessment.

The Planning Authority is precluded from issuing a decision on the planning application until it receives direction from ANCA in relation to aircraft noise.

The daa, the Airport Authority, is applying for a 15-year permission to build a suite of 11 distinct infrastructure projects at Dublin Airport and the surrounding area as well as an increase in the passenger capacity at the airport from 32 to 40 million passengers per annum. The passenger cap of 32 million passengers per annum is a condition of the 2007 permission granted by An Bord Pleanála for Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport.

The infrastructure projects include the expansion of the North and South Aprons to accommodate extra aircraft and the expansion of the check-in and passenger services area within Terminal 1 which includes the relocation of the existing security area. There are also three infrastructure projects on the airfield and five relating to airport access and parking.

This is an application of significant scale and complexity. The documentation submitted last December by the daa ran to over 7,000 pages and almost 700 drawings and Fingal County Council today received a further 12,000 pages and 200 drawings.