Dublin Airport (Passenger Capacity) Bill 2026: Second Stage Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-01 ============================================================ Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Buttimer, to the House. I know he takes notes, he listens and he follows through. I am sorry the Minister himself cannot be here. I will start by referencing what Senator Clifford-Lee spoke about because I fully support what she said. She lives on the ground, as does the Minister. She knows the constituency better than most. I have heard from local representatives of all parties and none there who are deeply concerned. There is a lot of mixed messaging. They represent the people, as does the Senator, which is important. I do not have any problem in developing and wishing well and success to Dublin Airport. It is critical, as its relationship with Fingal, but it has a planning history. I took the time to look at some documents from An Bord Pleanála and Fingal County Council. There is a long, protracted history and concern. For anyone to suggest that people who bought houses there in the sixties, seventies and eighties knew what they would be getting into today is grossly insulting. They did not know what they were getting into. I would not compliment the individual who is purported to have said it, to give him any more publicity than he has already had today. It is important as a public representative, if I were out there. I want to send a clear message to the councillors listening tonight who are aware of it. I have had a few phone calls today about it. We hear what they are saying but unfortunately the reality is the Dublin Airport (Passenger Capacity) Bill 2026 was passed by 118 votes to 28 in Dáil Éireann. We have to be realistic in this Chamber. We are a revising Chamber. That is where we are coming from. We are talking about a very large number in government on that side of the House which has a simple majority. We have a record of a Government that has rarely accepted any amendments to any legislation in the past year and a half since it came into power. The facts speak for themselves. I am happy to share that spreadsheet with anybody. I ask the Minister of State to convey to the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, who is responsible in this area, that I hope he will be genuinely open to dialogue, to listening and taking on board some of the amendments that come from all sides of the House, if both sides of the House are minded to table amendments. There is such a thing as leverage, be it in business or politics. For this Bill to go through, it is open to Government Members of course to propose amendments or seek to negotiate amendments. The Minister may take them on himself. I do not care whose amendments they are. There is scope for it. We can be sure going out of here today, and the Minister of State can take it back to the Minister, that there will be amendments. We will discuss them and tease them out. That is particularly important. Getting back to the Bill itself, to be fair, it sets out the processes. The Minister of State set that out very well. We talk about environmental impact assessments, appropriate assessments, An Coimisiún Pleanála, its role, timeframes and timescale. There is great clarity in all of that. Whether we like it or not, the process is clear. I commend the people who drew up the process because it is very easy. I read the explanatory memorandum completely in a few minutes. It is logical and sets out in a fair way processes and perhaps tighter timelines but there is discretion to extend some in certain circumstances which is all set out in the explanatory memorandum. I could not argue with the processes as set out in the legislation, which is important. I want to spend the last few seconds I have endorsing what other Members such as Senator Ryan have said about regional development. We have heard all these platitudes about regional development. The Minister of State is from Cork and Senator Joe Conway is from Waterford. The Cathaoirleach is a great champion of Kerry and everything that comes in and out of Kerry. Regional airports play a key role. I would like to think those on all sides of this House will fight hard to push for balanced regional development. We have leverage and opportunity. I look forward with great anticipation and excitement to reading the amendments in the coming days because this is the time. This is our opportunity. Let us bring our amendments before the House in relation to this legislation. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-01/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:08+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-01