Fingal County Council has accused the operators of Dublin Airport of acting in an inappropriate way and outside the bounds of the statutory planning process in relation to their application to raise the passenger cap at Dublin Airport.
In a hard-hitting statement issued by the local authority this evening, the Council also said daa’s actions “raised serious concerns about procedural integrity” and “risks undermining confidence in the fairness of the planning process”.
Earlier this month Fingal County Council made a request for further information on the most recent application by daa to increase the passenger cap to 36 million.
It said it made this request because of substantive concerns and inconsistencies in the planning application, including daa’s approach to counting passengers.
It said it received a letter from daa objecting to the request for further information but Fingal said the “appropriate and lawful method” for addressing this request is through a formal response.
Fingal County Council said it does not consider it appropriate to withdraw any element of its request for information and it says it is “committed to a planning process that is lawful, robust, and transparent.”
It also said it is committed to “maintaining independence, fairness, and transparency in the exercise of its planning functions”.
In a statement tonight, daa accused the Council of failing to engage on points of substance it raised and constantly moving the planning process.
daa said it was disappointed that Fingal County Council “continues to hide behind the planning process and fails to engage on the points of substance raised by daa in respect of its RFI (Request for Information), which goes beyond the Council’s legal remit”.
“Fingal County Council is constantly moving the planning goalposts and continues to demonstrate it is not willing or able to deal with large critical infrastructure projects and that is why it is essential that Dublin Airport is reclassified as strategic infrastructure,” it said.
It is the latest in a series of exchanges between the local authority and the Dublin Airport operators about the planning application.
Daa has regularly criticised the lack of a fast-track planning process to deal with the application.
Fingal County Council has pointed out on several occasions that daa did not engage in their pre-planning process in relation to the application to raise the passenger cap.
Earlier this year the Council deemed as invalid a previous application by daa to increase the cap from 32 to 36 million passengers.
