Dublin Airport (Passenger Capacity) Bill 2026: Committee and Remaining Stages Seanad Éireann — 2026-07-08 ============================================================ Lorraine Clifford-Lee (FF), Nominated by the Taoiseach I want to speak to this amendment because it concerns an important issue that I have raised directly with the Minister. I have also raised it in this House and at the transport committee. The Minister said that a small number of residents have valid issues with living next to Dublin Airport. They deserve to be listened to and catered for. The people living around St. Margaret's have been living there for generations. Many of them are living in family clusters and we all know the importance in Irish society of intergenerational living and family clusters. I am thinking particularly of the McDonnell family in St. Margaret's. Adrienne McDonnell and her husband, Noel, are in the Gallery. I have been engaging with Adrienne and many of her neighbours on this issue for a number of years. They are decent, honest, hard-working people who just want their situation resolved. They have been living in limbo for many years. They have real concerns. They have engaged in good faith with the DAA. They just want to be treated fairly. They want to be able to replace the homes they have. They have been living in Dublin for generations and want to remain living in Dublin. They want to be able to purchase an equivalent house in Dublin. It is as simple as that. As the scheme is currently constituted, they would be unable to do that. The Minister is on record as saying, as he has said today, that this scheme needs to drastically improve. A small number of people are affected. We are talking about a major piece of infrastructure. It would not take much for those people to be treated fairly. When we talk about being treated fairly, they need to be given a reasonable valuation for their homes. The scheme, as currently constituted, does not take into account a lot of things. Those families, for example, need to be given a premium higher than the premium currently on offer. For example, they need to be given a premium above what is currently being offered. Anybody who is selling a house will get a valuation. We know Dublin is a competitive market and, all around the country, houses are going for far in excess of what they are valued at. However, if you have only one prospective buyer, there is no capacity for competitive bidding to increase the price. Are people really being given a fair valuation unless there is a significant premium on the valuation given to them? That uplift one would expect on an open market is not in play, so we need to look at that. As for replacing the houses, many of them are unique, one-off designs and dwellings. As it is often hard for a comparator to be found in the locality, a quantity surveyor needs to be engaged to put a proper value on it and to look at what it would cost to replicate that house someplace else. That is really important. Families should also be reimbursed for reasonable professional costs necessarily incurred through the scheme, including valuations, BER certificates, legal fees and land registry costs. People should not be out of pocket because they live next to the airport and because the airport's expansion plans require them to leave their area. This is just common decency and fairness. I know the Minister is listening to this because he has said on a number of occasions that the scheme which is there is not good enough. I already spoke about the general power to direct the DAA for any purpose. This is one of the issues I would like the Minister to direct the DAA on. I know the ANCA decision is out for public consultation and that is going to close on 3 September. I encourage everybody to put in submissions relating to noise or any other issue because it is a really important public consultation. The engagement after that is really important. I hope the Minister will direct the new chairman of the DAA. Hopefully we will have a new CEO who will take public engagement to a different level. There needs to be a changed attitude towards the voluntary dwelling purchase scheme. I will be writing to the Minister about the issues I consider to be outstanding. For the good neighbour principle to be applied correctly, it also needs to be applied to the voluntary dwelling purchase scheme. It needs to be expanded, it needs to be decent and it needs to be fair. I hope the Minister will engage with the DAA after the public consultation closes. Families have been living in limbo for too long. It is too much stress. I have met the families. I know the pain and suffering they are going through while dealing with all the other daily issues we have to deal with, like illness, death and normal family issues. It is very difficult. You have this enormous cloud hanging over you and do not know when your home will be gone, how you will be able to replace it and how you will be able to replace the deep connection you have with your community and family living close by. We need to move this on. I know the Minister is listening to us and to the concerns. I look forward to some good engagement after 3 September and we can move this forward. Enough is enough at this stage. --- 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/2026-07-08/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:10+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-07-08