Varadkar urges Dublin Airport to start work on new runway

A SECOND runway at Dublin Airport is an economic necessity and building work should begin now, the Taoiseach has declared.

Leo Varadkar said the Government was 100% behind the new runway as the Opposition claimed Transport Minister Shane Ross had achieved nothing on the issue.

The airport ‘has positioned itself as a global hub, yet the existing planning permission would restrict it to 65 aircraft movements – when it already facilitates twice that number with one runway’, said Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin.

‘The delay in taking decisive decisions on a second runway has reached farcical levels,’ he added, reminding members of a 2010 newspaper article written by Mr Ross in which he branded Terminal 2 a ‘white elephant, destined to be the most underused terminal in Europe’.

Mr Martin declared: ‘How wrong he was. He has failed to advance legislation that is critical to the runway project and, in particular, the appointment of a noise regulator.’

Last April the CEO of the Dublin Airport Authority, Dalton Philips signalled his alarm at Government delays overshadowing the project, and he had done so again this week, saying delay would be an ‘economic catastrophe’.

The minister had promised this legislation 22 months ago and failed to deliver, Mr Martin said, while the Irish Aviation Authority had been nominated as noise regulator, which was wrong, forcing the nomination of Fingal County Council instead.

‘This is a critical piece of infrastructure with an enormous impact on the Irish economy, indirectly supporting 97,000 jobs,’ he said.

The Taoiseach said: ‘The Government is 100% behind the DAA and its plans for a new parallel runway, the new north runway, at Dublin Airport.

‘I would encourage the DAA to get started on building the runway.’

Mr Varadkar said that the Transport Minister intended to bring the legislation before the House after the summer, ‘but there is no reason why work on the runway cannot begin.’