The Dáil have passed legislation to end the passenger cap at Dublin Airport.
This motion was passed by 118 voted to 28 in the Dáil and will now be brought before the Seanad for further debate.
Speaking this, Transport Minister, Darragh O'Brien has said that passenger numbers would have decreased by more than four million, if the current cap of 32 million had been enforced.
He also dismissed Opposition claims that he had not met local residents groups, calling this untrue. In fact, he insisted that he had “three separate meetings with three groups over the course of the last 12 to 18 months", according to reports in The Irish Times.
This new legislation will allow for an environmental impact assessment required under EU law, which is to be carried out by An Coimisiún Pleanála, ahead of any order to remove the cap.
In a statement per The Irish Times, Mr O'Brien said this assessment would be “independently undertaken” by the organisation within a set time frame before this order was made.
“Any charge that we are setting aside any environmental considerations are absolutely not true,” he said.
“I will not prejudice the outcome of that assessment which I will consider fully before making an order. I have made it clear that even though international aviation emissions are outside the scope of the climate action plan which is a fact ... we are taking actions that are aligned with the global approach to decarbonisation in the aviation sector".
However, some members of the Opposition had criticised the lack of time which was allocated to debate this Bill.
Members included Sinn Féin TD, Darren O'Rourke who said that plenty of people will understand the passenger cap was "of its time", but added it was "also ignored on an annual basis".
“People can understand the logic of growing the airport in a sustainable way, but they also live with what they would see as essentially an airport and airlines that are given free rein, with complete disregard of their neighbours, responsibilities and obligations that are on individual households and other businesses,” he said, according to The Irish Times.
“They wonder why there is a different set of rules for the DAA and several airlines".
