Opposition from heritage campaigners to use of the old central terminal building at Dublin Airport is set to add an additional €7 million to the cost of the Pier D facility.
The Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) is attempting to have the new €100 million Pier D facility completed by a Government deadline of October 2007.
In order to meet this deadline the authority was hoping to gain access through the old central terminal building (OCTB), but this would involved structural changes to what is a protected structure of national importance.
The Pier D facility was scheduled to cost about €100 million, but the problems with access through the OCTB could push this figure higher.
The DAA is facing a number of financial pressures at the airport.
Its plans for a second terminal have had to be revisited after airlines indicated they wanted a 50 per cent increase in the size of the facility.
The authority is also under pressure to pay for all the new infrastructure, which is going to cost €1.2 billion. So far the aviation regulator has only permitted the company to levy a €6.14 per passenger charge. The DAA says this is not enough to fund all the developments planned.
The architect of the old central terminal building was Desmond FitzGerald.
The curved building was designed to echo the lines of the bridge of a great ocean liner and won many architectural design awards.
The building was designed to cater for just 100,000 passengers a year. It has been mainly used as office space for many years, though arriving passengers on some flights now pass through it on their way to the main terminal.
Architects often describe it as one of the most important pre-war Irish buildings. Many of the internal design features of the building have been retained as a reminder of the early days of Irish aviation.
The DAA, according to information seen by The Irish Times, intended to use the building to link the new Pier D with the main terminal.
But this has faced strong opposition from heritage campaigners and the planning authorities.
The DAA was informed in recent months that any use of the OCTB could be challenged on planning grounds.
The authority made persistent attempts to negotiate a compromise with planners on the issue to get some type of access through the OCTB, but this proved fruitless.
According to internal information, the DAA will instead build a bridge around the OCTB and gain access to the Pier D facility that way.
It says it has existing permission for this bridge from Fingal County Council.
Consequently it is incurring what it describes as unavoidable additional costs of over €7 million.
The Pier D facility is being built by the international building firm Laing O'Rourke. Facilitation works began in February.
The facility will provide 14 new boarding gates for narrow- and wide-bodied aircraft. The facility is different to a terminal building because it has no check-in desk capacity.
It is designed to provide additional departure gate space to the airport while planning continues on the second terminal.
While it will enable additional aircraft to use the airport, the chief executive of the authority Declan Collier recently admitted that the second terminal was the only piece of infrastructure likely to really tackle congestion at the airport.
"There will not be a significant enhancement in the passenger experience at Dublin Airport until the second terminal is built," he wrote in the recent annual report of the DAA covering 2005.
The international architecture firm Ove Arup is currently deciding on what kind of terminal should be built.
The DAA originally envisaged a 50,000sq m (538,196sq ft) facility, but the main airlines are pressing for a much bigger building, possibly up to 80,000sq m.
