Scores of people have left the area along where the DAA owns thousands of acres. He also also mentioned toxic fumes that were not being monitored and people moving away: “Tracks of land, buildings and houses are black from plane fumes.

In March 2018 Scully spoke of noise from current airport operations, as high as 90 decibels, making it impossible to hear people talking and his buildings shook when planes were taking off and landing. Teasgasc, the Agriculture and Food Development Authority, supported Scully, estimating in 2016 that the cost of setting up a comparable new dairy enterprise stood conservatively at US$662,000. He said that setting up a farming business on new land would be financially impossible. Scully was offered the current market price for his home along with an additional 30 per cent of its value but nothing for the land or loss of his livelihood. He is one of the homeowners offered a voluntary buy-out scheme by the DAA.

Scully’s house and farm, 30 hectares he owns plus 24 hectares leased from the DAA (Dublin Airport Authority) is located directly under the proposed flightpath.

He sought a judicial review alongside 21 other families, who had argued that the development was illegal and that Fingal County Council had failed to consider or address their concerns over the impacts on their homes and lands. One of the individuals participating in the lawsuit was Jim Scully, a dairy and beef farmer set to lose his home, farm and likelihood to the new runway. The lawsuit to halt expansion of Dublin Airport was rejected by the High Court in February 2018, in spite of its recognition of the real and immediate risks posed by climate change, but FIE was pleased by the ground-breaking finding of a constitutional right to an environment that protests human dignity and well-being. Litigants also challenged the time extension of planning permission that had been granted by Fingal County Council in 2007. FIE claimed that the airport expansion was inconsistent with “an unenumerated personal constitutional right to an environment that is consistent with human dignity and well-being of citizens at large”. The individuals asserted a variety of legal reasons for opposing airport expansion while FIE focused on environmental grounds, including the additional greenhouse gas emissions which would worsen climate change and its disastrous impacts. My home is completely devalued.”įriends of the Irish Environment (FIE) and a group of individuals filed a lawsuit attempting to stop building of the new runway. Even at the moment you can smell so much jet fuel, the trees are gone for miles and what’s happening recently is ruining our lives. One resident living just 500 meters from the new runway said that his family were effectively “living on a building site” as construction work had begun nearby, compounding the impact of ongoing airport operations: “My family and I can no longer live here, it is horrendous and I fear for the health implications of living so close to the runway. In March 2017 several homeowners near Dublin Airport said their lives had been ruined by the proposed new runway.

Dublin airport runway