The North Runway Technical Group (NRTG), a voluntary group with aviation and engineering expertise, including current and former airline pilots, has today filed three simultaneous complaints with European institutions over Ireland’s treatment of environmental law at Dublin Airport.
The complaints, filed with the European Commission, the European Parliament Petitions Committee, and the Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee, allege that Ireland is in breach of six EU instruments covering environmental impact assessment, noise regulation, airport noise competent authority independence, aerodrome safety, air navigation procedures, and public participation rights. The complaints document a pattern in which every regulatory body that has attempted to enforce any environmental constraint on Dublin Airport has been met with either High Court litigation by the airport operator or legislation by the Government to remove the constraint.
The EU filings follow a detailed submission to the Oireachtas Committee on Transport, filed last week as part of the Committee’s pre-legislative scrutiny of the Dublin Airport (Passenger Capacity) Bill 2026. NRTG has requested a public hearing before the Committee.
“NRTG’s submission to the Committee highlights that the Bill does not merely remove the current 32 million passenger cap. It prohibits any future government from ever imposing a passenger capacity condition on Dublin Airport. It exempts itself from Ireland’s Climate Action Act. It gives the Minister power to revoke planning conditions by order, with consultation that is discretionary rather than mandatory. It compresses the timeframe for legal challenges and removes the right of appeal to the Court of Appeal.
“Once it is illegal to cap passengers, any environmental condition that has the effect of limiting throughput becomes a target. Noise limits, wastewater restrictions, flight curfews: DAA can argue that each one is a passenger cap by another name, and this Bill gives them the legal basis to have it removed,” said Gareth O’Brien of NRTG.
“The infrastructure required to support growth beyond 32 million passengers does not have planning permission. DAA’s application for 11 major projects was returned by Fingal County Council in December 2024 with 375 material deficiencies and remains incomplete” they said.
Per the group, Fingal County Council identified nine categories of planning non-compliance at Dublin Airport in September 2022. It has issued enforcement notices on two: night flights and the passenger cap. Both enforcement actions were neutralised. DAA obtained a High Court stay against the night flight notice. The Government introduced this Bill in response to the passenger cap enforcement. The remaining seven categories, including flight paths affecting 30,000 residents, remain unenforced after more than three and a half years. The Ombudsman has found Fingal’s responses to its investigation “unsatisfactory.”
“We support sustainable growth at Dublin Airport, but growth must follow compliance,” said O’Brien. “If a planning condition is breached, the answer is enforcement, not legislation to remove the condition.”
On 12 February 2026, the Advocate General of the Court of Justice of the European Union issued an opinion in Case C-857/24 supporting the IAA’s inclusion of the passenger cap in slot coordination, finding that historic airport slots “are not property rights.” Despite the EU’s own legal officer vindicating the regulatory approach, the Government continues to legislate to remove the cap.
Dublin Airport’s wastewater is treated at the Ringsend plant, which is persistently overloaded and in breach of the EU Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. Uisce Eireann has warned that housing connections across Dublin will be frozen by 2028 without new drainage infrastructure. Developments have already been delayed for lack of wastewater capacity. A EUR 500 million upgrade to Ringsend is not complete until 2027.
“The Government is giving one facility unlimited access to water and sewage infrastructure while new housing needs connections to the same system. If the airport cannot be capped, will housing be?” said O’Brien.
“We have exhausted every domestic avenue,” O’Brien said. “We are now asking Europe to hold Ireland to its own laws.”