The expansion of Dublin airport is now estimated to cost €2 billion, not counting new roads or the metro, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
In May last year, the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) finalised a 10-year capital investment programme with a projected price tag of €1.2 billion. Now, just 17 months on, the estimated cost of providing a range of facilities at the chronically congested airport has been put at nearly €2 billion.
The new figure was disclosed by DAA chief executive Declan Collier at a two-day conference last week on airport development, organised by the Fingal Development Board. It transpires that the earlier €1.2 billion will all be spent over the next three years - half of it on a second main terminal.
Fingal County Council lost no time in granting planning permission for the new terminal, which will cost an estimated €609 million - including Pier E. The council sees Dublin airport as a huge economic asset to Fingal and last June adopted an ambitious master plan for its development.
In line with the DAA's own projections, this plan provides a framework for airport expansion so it can cater for 38 million passengers and 304,000 aircraft movements a year by 2025 - nearly double what it currently handles. A third terminal, on the western side of the airport, is also envisaged.
An Bord Pleanála recently concluded a 12-day hearing on the DAA's plans for a second main runway. But even though this was submitted in advance of the second terminal, the €200 million project will not go ahead until 2110 at the earliest.
The two schemes are being considered separately as they are processed through the planning system - a device that smacks of "project splitting", according to the DAA's critics. What this means is that the overall impact of doubling the size of the airport is not being properly assessed.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said last week that "the sustainability test of major development projects ensures that the impact of the wider economic and social environment is taken into account before projects go ahead".
Nobody knows what he meant by a "sustainability test" in the case of Dublin airport.
All we have to rely on is the environmental impact statement (EIS) for each project, prepared on behalf of the DAA. There has been no wider strategic environmental assessment carried out, nor has any cost-benefit analysis been published by the DAA.
Indeed, there is serious doubt that such an exercise exists at all.
Had these studies been undertaken, and given the massive investment being planned, alternatives would have had to be examined - including the possibility of building a second airport on a large cutaway bog near Portarlington, Co Laois, as Bord na Móna has proposed.
It emerged at the recent oral hearing on the second main runway that no health impact assessment had been done, even though Fingal's master plan calls for one.
The county council also admitted that it had taken all data on noise and water quality issues at face value from the DAA, without independent verification.
It also emerged that the DAA had failed to inform the public, in its planning application notice, that the original airport runway would be demolished as part of the plan for the proposed second main runway - even though the demolition of a runway is not exempted development under the 2000 Planning Act.
All consultations with community groups in the areas most affected - Portmarnock and St Margaret's took place on the basis of a comparable parallel runway to the existing one. However, just weeks before the planning application was submitted, the proposed runway was widened to cater for Airbus A380 "super-jumbos".
The wider impact of developing the airport on the road network that serves it was not adequately considered. The DAA's road traffic projections were not based on the latest Dublin Transportation Office computer model, nor did they take into account the effect on the M50 of major developments such as Ikea.
The cost of road improvements and new roads needed to cater for the extra traffic generated by a greatly expanded airport could be as high as €300 million, according to one estimate.
The DAA is required to pay Fingal infrastructure levies of €21 million for the new runway and €12.5 million for the second terminal, which it will probably recoup from airport charges. However, these "development contributions" will cover only a fraction of the cost of road improvements; the rest will have to be met by the Exchequer.
Airport charges are certain to increase. One of the half-hidden costs that will have to be recovered is a partial write-off of Pier C, opened only six years ago; much of it is to be replaced by the second terminal.
Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary maintains that the proposed terminal, which he described last week as a "grossly over-costed bauble" for the DAA, is being built in the wrong place. He has also claimed that the write-off of Pier C could be as high as €150 million, though other sources say it will be lower.
The Metro North project, which will link Dublin airport with St Stephen's Green, is estimated to cost a further €3.5 to €4 billion. The projected cost has never been revealed officially, even though it, too, will have to be paid for by the public.