A company which wants to build a new passenger terminal beside Dublin Airport began a High Court action yesterday to view reports dealing with future requirements and expansion of the existing airport complex.
Huntstown Air Park Ltd has taken its proceedings against An Bord Pleanala following its failure to get planning permission for its terminal at Huntstown, Cloghran, Co Dublin. Aer Rianta and the Minister for Public Enterprise are parties to the case.
Fingal County Council rejected the application for outline planning permission in May 1997 and an appeal was taken to An Bord Pleanala.
The appeal hearing opened in November 1997 but was adjourned when Huntstown could not get access to documents dealing with future requirements and expansion at the airport.
An Bord Pleanala denies that it has power to require submission of documents in the absence of having formed an opinion that they are necessary to determine the appeal. The board had not yet formed such an opinion in the case.
It is also submitted that An Bord Pleanala is under a statutory obligation to ensure that the appeal is determined as expeditiously as possible.
Aer Rianta claims the reports are commercially sensitive and confidential. A previous court hearing was told Aer Rianta envisaged the eventual development of a second terminal in 15 or 20 years to give an overall capacity of 40 million passengers. In court yesterday, Mr James O'Reilly SC, for Huntstown, told Mr Justice Geoghegan that the company's application was for outline planning permission for a second passenger terminal with access to the runways at the airport.
The Minister for Public Enterprise owned the airport but Aer Rianta, as the Minister's agent, ran and managed it. Huntstown had purchased 62 acres of land adjacent to their runways.
It wished to invest its own monies and build a second passenger terminal. But it was impossible to build a passenger terminal without having access to the runways.
One of the principal reasons the application had failed before Fingal County Council was that Huntstown could not show how the plan would integrate its development into the overall planning of Dublin Airport.
Aer Rianta had submitted that the reports sought were confidential and that Huntstown was not entitled to them.
Huntstown was submitting that not only were the documents necessary for the prosecution of its appeal but that they were necessary for An Bord Pleanala.
In an affidavit, Mr Brian Meehan, a town planning consultant retained by Huntstown, said he believed Huntstown's interests had been substantially prejudiced by the decision of the inspector to proceed with the oral hearing commenced in November 1997 in the absence of the documents.
At no time had the documents been made available to the planning authority.
Ms Elizabeth Dolan, senior administrative officer at An Bord Pleanala, said the inspector conducting the oral hearing had formed the opinion that the reports or studies were not necessary for the purpose of enabling the board to determine the appeal and was of the view that the appeal could be adequately and fairly determined in their absence.
The hearing continues today.