The current cap on passenger numbers at Dublin Airport is needed to “allow the people of North Dublin to sleep at night”, Ciarán Cuffe has said.
The DAA is due to submit an application asking for the passenger cap to be increased 'in a number of weeks'.
CEO Kenny Jacobs said the airport is operating close to the current cap and he hopes it can be increased from 32 million passengers a year to 40 million.
Speaking to Newstalk, MEP Ciarán Cuffe said there are good reasons why the cap should not be increased.
“Continuing to expand aviation, I don’t think it is a aligned with the greenhouse gas limits that we have set ourselves,” he said.
“But more importantly, at a local level, this is really about allowing the people of North to sleep at night.”
A cap on passenger numbers will 'hurt' @DublinAirport sustainability ambitions? Scratching my head to understand this, so I've written to CEO Kenny Jacobs asking him to explain himself. pic.twitter.com/itOS0gkLd8
— Ciarán Cuffe (@CiaranCuffe) November 8, 2023
Second runway
Many people living close to the airport are already unhappy with the amount of noise emanating from it.
Last year, a second runway opened and one local resident said it was “basically like a war zone over your house”.
“Every minute you have large aircraft flying over your house,” Alan Lynch said.
“Very, very low and very, very noisy. We are recording the noise from each of these flights and they can exceed 90 decibels on a regular basis.
“The height of the flights could be 600 or 700 metres above the ground and these are intercontinental jets that are flying to the US etc. so they are very, very large.”
Following any noise complaint to the DAA, the flight path in question is put under review and the matter can be escalated further to the Irish Aviation Authority.
Main image: A Ryanair jet is seen at Dublin Airport in September 2017. Picture by: Niall Carson/PA Archive/PA Images
