Are Fingal's plans for a third terminal at Dublin airport the start of the next planning disaster there, as some critics allege, or potential salvation for a long suffering public? Frank McDonald investigates
A new road network costing well over €200 million will be needed to cope with traffic generated by the planned expansion of Dublin airport to cater for up to 38 million passengers per annum - double the number being handled at present; otherwise, the M50 would become even more congested.
That is one of the reasons why Fingal County Council, which unveiled its own master plan for the airport on April 5th, wants to see work getting under way as soon as possible on the development of a third passenger terminal at the western side of the airport zone - to relieve approach roads from the east.
Fingal's director of planning, architect David O'Connor, said its aim was to "put some shape" on the future development of Dublin airport, where a second terminal is at an advanced stage of planning. He also emphasised that the council's plan had been drawn up in consultation with the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA).
Ryanair company secretary Jim Callaghan denounced it as "the start of the next disaster at Dublin airport" and complained that the council did not consult the airlines about its contents. He was told that both Ryanair and Aer Lingus could have made submissions in response to a call last December.
Curiously, neither of them did so.
The DAA, which has a fractious relationship with Ryanair, did not involve the airlines in its discussions with the county council. It also went ahead with a planning application for a second main runway, parallel to the existing one, without dealing adequately with the wider impacts of this development outside the airport zone.
"No economic case was made for the runway", Mr O'Connor told The Irish Times. "The DAA hadn't dealt with that, or with the traffic implications. They had a head-in-sand attitude about anything outside their fence, as if that was Fingal's problem. We had to tell them there was a bigger picture, which they needed to take on board".
Fingal had huge concerns about traffic and sought a raft of further information before finally deciding last Wednesday to grant permission for the €150 million scheme - subject to a whopping €21 million levy. It also got independent advice from aviation planning consultant David Stanley about proposed developments at the airport.
The council's draft master plan not only includes new relief roads but also a "multi-modal transportation centre" for buses and the proposed metro line linking the airport with St Stephen's Green. One of the roads is envisaged as a dual-carriageway around the "airport box" while another would link Blanchardstown with Baldoyle.
Michael Lorigan, Fingal's director of transportation, said it would be seeking Government funding for this new road network, which was designed to be "independent" of the M1 and M50. It would cost at least €200 million and probably much more, depending on the price of land, but would bring "very significant benefits".
A third terminal on the west side of the airport is one of the central elements of the draft - a proposal long canvassed by brothers Des and Ulick McEvaddy, who own land in the area. "There's no two ways about it - it should press ahead", Mr Stanley said. "Let's see if private investors will put their money where there mouth is".
David O'Connor agreed, saying Fingal would not allow further expansion on the east side of the airport beyond a capacity of 30 million passengers due to fears of congestion on the existing road network. He also said the volume of staff car parking at the airport - around 5,000 free spaces - "will have to be cut back".
Plans for Dublin airport have never been so closely scrutinised; in the past, whatever Aer Rianta wanted, it got. Now the DAA, its successor, is pursuing a massive capital expenditure programme with a ballpark estimate of €1.2 billion - including the new runway, the second terminal and a new Pier D, with 14 aircraft stands.
It also includes replacing both Pier A and Pier B as well as extending the existing main terminal to the north, which will become Ryanair's base, and a new Pier E, jutting out from the second terminal. The latter is likely to be even larger than Terminal 1, which has a floor area of 75,000 sq metres (807,300 sq ft), and will cater for Aer Lingus.
Last month, the contract to build Pier D on a site just north of the original terminal building was awarded to Laing O'Rourke in the expectation that it would be delivered before the end of next year. The plan goes back at least as far as 1997; it had been held up by uncertainty over the location of the second terminal.
The Government finally told the DAA last May to get on with it, even though Pier D will only provide a net 10 additional aircraft stands and will be relatively remote from the main terminal. Mark Foley, director of capital programmes at the airport, said it was "the only project that can be built now with no impact on other facilities".
Fingal County Council is "not at all happy" with Pier D, according to Mr O'Connor. He regards it as an example of the type of "ad hoc planning" which has turned the airport into the visual and functional mess we know today.
"That's why we have drawn up our master plan - to prevent that happening in the future," he said.
Any real relief from the overcrowded main terminal will have to await completion of the second terminal, optimistically scheduled for "late 2009".
Engineers Ove Arup have been appointed as project managers for the new terminal, with Pascall and Watson as the architects; both firms are working on Terminal 5 at London Heathrow. Mark Foley stressed that the design team had been selected from a short-list of seven with wide experience of airports.
He also said the terminal would "set a new standard" for buildings at Dublin airport, along the lines of Cork's new terminal, which was designed by Murray O'Laoire Architects and cost €160 million.
The new Dublin terminal is earmarked for a site adjoining the existing main terminal, where car-hire firms are located. Part of this site is occupied by the one-sided Pier C, which was completed just six years ago, and the listed- but marooned - mid-18th century Corballis House is also in the way; it will have to be demolished.
On March 23rd last, Minister for Transport Martin Cullen appointed a team of independent experts (chartered surveyors Boyd Creed Sweet, along with Parr Architects and environmental consultants Faber Maunsell) to "verify the costs" of the DAA's plan for the second terminal, estimated at €250 to €300 million.
As Mr Cullen explained, this verification process is part of a "triple safeguard" of consultation, verification and regulation outlined in the Government's May 2005 Aviation Action Plan. Its avowed aim is to secure "the best outcome for customers, plus maximum efficiency and cost effectiveness of Terminal 2", he said.
The consultants are to report in June on their assessment of the terminal project "as designed and costed by the DAA". There was never any question of asking them to examine such issues as whether this is the best location for a second terminal, still less carry out a full cost-benefit analysis of the plan.
Uproar (United Portmarnock Residents Opposed to Another Runway) has repeatedly highlighted the fact that there has been no such analysis of the second runway plan, or of any alternatives to the expansion of Dublin airport - for example, building a second airport on a greenfield site 35-50km southwest of the M50.
But Martin Cullen was having none of it. "I have no proposal to commission any study of alternative options for the provision of airport capacity to serve the greater Dublin area," he told the Dáil last June.
The DAA would "provide such capacity through the expansion of existingfacilities and infrastructure at Dublin Airport".
Distancing himself still further from any notion of carrying out a cost-benefit analysis of the runway plan, Mr Cullen said: "I am informed by the DAA that all capital projects are subjected to rigorous appraisal procedures and ultimately board approval, in compliance with the guidelines issued by the Department of Finance." Two months earlier, appearing before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport, DAA chairman Gary McGann merely said that the company's capital appraisal and management processes "reflect" the department's Guidelines for the Appraisal and Management of Capital Expenditure Proposals.
On October 20th last, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen made an important announcement on these guidelines in a speech to the Dublin Chamber of Commerce. Henceforth, he said, all public capital projects costing €30 million or more would be subject to an economic cost-benefit appraisal to ensure "value for money".
The bar had previously been set at €50 million. But Cowen believed it was "appropriate" to reduce this to €30 million, and said "full cost-benefit appraisal" would include "identification and carefully quantified analysis of all the relevant project costs and benefits, including indirect costs as well as . . . any risks of cost escalation".
As he noted, "the principle of cost-benefit analysis is that a project is only desirable if the benefits exceed the corresponding costs". But no such analysis has been carried out of any element of the DAA's €1.2 billion capital investment programme for Dublin airport, which is to be funded mainly by airport landing charges.
According to a report by Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly, the Department of Transport merely "believes" that the DAA has carried out a cost-benefit analysis of the runway plan.
Bizarrely, however, the Department "does not propose to seek the DAA's cost-benefit analysis . . . nor does it propose to carry out a separate analysis of this project".
The report, in response to a complaint by Uproar, said the DAA is empowered by the 1998 Air Navigation and Transport (Amendment) Act and the 2004 State Airports Act 2004 to "own, manage, operate and develop Dublin airport and to provide such facilities and services as it considers necessary for aircraft and passengers".
The Ombudsman concluded that there is no legal obligation on the DAA to seek ministerial approval for capital expenditure projects. In this, its position differs from those of other commercial semi-State bodies which do require such approval - the ESB, for example. In effect, the DAA is entitled to make it up as it goes along.
"In the case of capital projects at Dublin airport, the sponsoring agency is the management of the DAA and the sanctioning authority is the board of the company. It is a matter for the DAA to satisfy itself in relation to expenditure on capital projects and this is recognised in the Department of Finance guidelines", she said.
Ms O'Reilly noted that the Commission for Aviation Regulation carries out rigorous analysis of all airport costs, including capital expenditure.
However, its most recent report said: "Unavoidably, the commission has not had the time to analyse the revised DAA capex programme against the statutory objective of economic efficiency."
What Uproar has sought to have examined is the true economic cost of the second runway. One of its leading members, Matt Harley, who worked as an economist in the Department of Finance, has estimated the value of land consumed by the runway at €840 million - not counting the acreage that would be sterilised by it.
Uproar has drawn attention to a little-noticed proposal by Bord na Móna managing director John Hourican last July that a new airport could be developed on cutaway bog in the midlands, near Portarlington, Co Laois. But if this was an attempt to open a national discussion on the issue, it didn't get anywhere.
"Why would any company agree to the assessment of an alternative that would cost hundreds of millions of euro when it had in place an asset base capable of dealing with the task?", Gary McGann asked the Oireachtas committee on transport. "That would not make sense and would require the DAA to replicate everything."
Former Aer Rianta chief executive John Burke said the airport was fortunate in having a vast land bank - more than 2,000 acres - most of which was purchased many years ago at agricultural prices. Plans for a second parallel runway go back to the late-1960s and it was included in the 1972 county development plan.
Some 10,000 residents of Portmarnock - including Brian Byrne, a one-time general manager of Dublin airport who is now an Uproar activist - would be in its flight path, with all that means in terms of aircraft noise. But Fingal County Council says those living in St Margaret's, west of the airport, would be even more adversely affected.
Uproar's proposal that the airport's old main runway (known as 11/29) should be upgraded and extended was rejected by Fingal County Council's planners, acting on the advice of David Stanley. He warned that there would be a "risk of crossed approaches" by aircraft because of the angle between it and the present main runway.
He said two parallel runways "are standard internationally" and, in Dublin's case, a second runway is "essential" to cater for a projected 304,000 aircraft movements a year in 2025.
"New airports are notoriously expensive and are only needed if a city expands to swallow up land around its airport, which hasn't happened here".
But it's clear that the idea of developing a second airport for Dublin - in Baldonnel, for example - has not been seriously examined by the DAA.
As far as it is concerned, there is only one solution - the continued expansion of Dublin airport. And whatever the Department of Finance guidelines say, that is the Government's position too.
Fingal County Council's draft master plan for Dublin Airport may be inspected over the next four weeks at the County Hall and Rathbeale Library, both located in Swords, and at Blanchardstown Library. The deadline for making submissions on it is May 17th.
Dublin airport: by the numbers
Passenger numbers have increased from two million in 1982 to 18 million in 2005. The forecast for 2025 is 38 million passengers.
The number of aircraft movements (flights in and out) is expected to increase from 166,000 a year in 2003 to 304,000 a year in 2025.
Fingal County Council decided last Wednesday to grant planning permission for a second main runway costing €150 million - subject to a €21 million levy.
Construction starts this week on Pier D, north of the original terminal building, to provide 14 new aircraft stands by the end of 2007.
A second terminal costing at least €250 million is being planned for a site adjoining the existing main terminal and is due to open in 2009.
A total of 2,600 acres - mainly owned by the Dublin Airport Authority - is zoned for "airport and related uses" in Fingal's county plan.
12,500 people are employed in the airport zone. Many of them travel to work by car, using up 5,000 free staff parking spaces.