{"id":192294,"date":"2025-11-21T09:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T09:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/192294\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T09:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T09:17:13","slug":"fingal-council-chief-accused-daa-of-shocking-conduct-in-campaign-to-get-airport-cap-lifted-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/192294\/","title":{"rendered":"Fingal council chief accused DAA of \u2018shocking\u2019 conduct in campaign to get airport cap lifted \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fingal County Council<\/a> accused the DAA<\/a> of \u201cshocking\u201d conduct in a complaint to the Department of Transport<\/a> about the company\u2019s misfiring campaign earlier this year to lift the 32 million passenger cap at Dublin Airport<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The January complaint from Fingal chief executive AnnMarie Farrelly does not mention DAA chief executive Kenny Jacobs<\/a> by name but it takes issue with the way the State airport operator responded to an adverse planning ruling on its \u201cno build\u201d bid to lift the cap to 36 million. <\/p>\n

Saying the DAA had released \u201ctwo emails to give a false impression about replanning requests\u201d to the local authority, Ms Farrelly made clear her displeasure in a note to the top aviation official in the department.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll can be refuted with lots of records to show the reality,\u201d Ms Farrelly told Ethna Brogan, assistant secretary in the Department of Transport with responsibility for aviation and emergency planning.<\/p>\n

\u201cNevertheless something has to change here, it\u2019s absolutely shocking behaviour,\u201d Ms Farrelly said in reference to the DAA. \u201cI would welcome the opportunity to discuss.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her email came after Fingal ruled the DAA\u2019s application to raise the cap to 36 million passengers was invalid, prompting a furious response from Mr Jacobs, who accused planners of inconsistency. <\/p>\n

Ms Farrelly included in her email to Ms Brogan a message from the Fingal communications chief Gerry McDermott to the DAA, in which he complained that the airport group had released a \u201ccovering email from a junior staff member\u201d in the council.<\/p>\n

\"AnnMarieAnnMarie Farrelly <\/p>\n

\u201cIt may be the DAA\u2019s objective to have Dublin Airport classified as strategic national infrastructure but that\u2019s not how it is right now and publicly lampooning the council and its staff to support the argument doesn\u2019t help foster good relations,\u201d Mr McDermott said.<\/p>\n

Mr Jacobs had said earlier that Fingal was \u201cwrong\u201d to suggest DAA had not discussed the \u201cno-build\u201d application with the local authority: \u201cDAA engages extensively with [Fingal] on all planning matters and had more than 30 meetings with them last year,\u201d Mr Jacobs said.<\/p>\n

However, Ms Farrelly wrote a second email to Ms Brogan enclosing the \u201cagreed minutes\u201d of a December 5th, 2024, meeting with DAA, a fortnight before it lodged the disputed application.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Potential litigation looms as Minister blocks near-\u20ac1m exit package for DAA chief Kenny JacobsOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The minutes said an interim application to uplift passenger capacity was discussed: \u201cIt was noted that pre-planning has not taken place and the application detail is still outstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fingal released the files under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act after a request from The Irish Times that was prompted by claims of poor relations between the local authority and the DAA under Mr Jacobs\u2019 tenure. <\/p>\n

The DAA had no comment on the Fingal records.<\/p>\n

The county council is pivotal for the DAA given its planning role in relation to Dublin Airport, which is struggling to advance plans to lift the cap and expand its infrastructure. <\/p>\n

Mr Jacobs remains in his post despite a September mediation deal with the DAA board in which he agreed to a near \u20ac1 million pay-off to leave the State-owned business three years into his seven-year term. Minister for Transport Darragh O\u2019Brien has blocked the agreement<\/a>, leading to a standoff with the DAA board over Mr Jacobs\u2019 future.<\/p>\n

\"RelationsRelations between the DAA board and Kenny Jacobs broke down over the summer. Photograph: Alan Betson\/The Irish Times<\/p>\n

DAA directors resolved in the summer that Mr Jacobs was unsuitable for the post after new issues emerged while a senior barrister was investigating two formal complaints against him. They reached that conclusion even though the formal complaints were not upheld. <\/p>\n

The DAA board holds a regular scheduled meeting on Friday but it remains unclear if the impasse with the Minister is on the agenda.<\/p>\n

Fingal also disclosed the existence of further correspondence with the department and senior Government figures on DAA planning matters but didn\u2019t release it. <\/p>\n

FOI access was refused to correspondence between Ms Farrelly and the department on January 21st and her correspondence that day with the office of then t\u00e1naiste Miche\u00e1l Martin. Access was also refused to correspondence with Ms Brogan on June 25th and July 25th this year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fingal County Council accused the DAA of \u201cshocking\u201d conduct in a complaint to the Department of Transport about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,38997,24001,26,18,10410,19,17,40609],"class_list":{"0":"post-192294","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-daa","10":"tag-department-of-transport","11":"tag-dublin-airport","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-fingal-county-council","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-kenny-jacobs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115586940049947335","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}