Dublin Airport (Passenger Capacity) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages
Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-08
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Laura Harmon (LAB), Industrial and Commercial Panel

I also want to speak to this amendment. I support the calls for a report in relation to how this will affect balanced regional development. I live close to Cork Airport. I want to talk about the development of that airport, as well as two other airports in the Munster area, namely Shannon and Kerry. I welcome Adrienne McDonnell and Noel Hughes, who are in the Gallery. They are concerned residents who live near Dublin Airport. I have an amendment later on, which I will speak to. Generally, we in the Labour Party are opposed to this Bill. We opposed it in the Dáil. We believe it is an anti-climate Bill. The Government is making it clear that climate, environment and biodiversity considerations can be disregarded at will if they pose a challenge to their whims.
This is the third Bill produced this term that seeks to disapply the climate Act. We have seen it with the infrastructure Bill, we are seeing it with this Bill and we saw it again this week with the liquefied natural gas reserve Bill. This Bill does not just raise to some higher figure the current cap of 32 million passengers that Dublin Airport has consistently broken in recent years, but it also allows the Minister to scrap the cap altogether. No alternative ceiling is proposed. The Minister has floated a figure of 60 million passengers a year, almost doubling the current limit. The Labour Party has serious concerns over the Bill, so we are we are opposed to the Bill as a whole.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-07-08/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:10+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-08