Game of Drones in Dublin 15

Green leader Roderic O’Gorman has expressed concern about drone deliveries in Dublin 15.

The Dublin West TD took umbrage with a commercial drone delivery service named Manna Drone Delivery and how commercial drone technology is unregulated in Ireland at present.

O’Gorman told the Dáil that “the drone flies over, and the food comes down in a brown paper bag on a string; it is literally manna from heaven.”

“Any time people are in Dublin 15, they hear the buzz and see the drone going over and know that a punter in Clonsilla is getting his or her burrito. This is a brand new area, and as with any new technology, there are benefits.”

“However, as this delivery approach is about to spread to new areas across Dublin in the next number of weeks, there is an urgent need for airborne delivery drones to be regulated because right now, the rules about their use are really lax,” he said.

The Green TD said that a number of people have raised the issue with him due to the noise made by the drones.

He explained, “drones make a very distinct sound as they travel through the air and as they rise and descend. While this noise could be tolerated maybe on a once-off basis, there are now flight paths over certain estates in Dublin 15 where in an afternoon there could be 30 or 40 drones flying over and back.”

“I am not exaggerating; I have been there and seen that over an afternoon. That is the scale of what we are talking about. That can have a real impact on someone’s enjoyment, particularly of their garden,” the Castleknock TD said.

He said there are also issues surrounding safety and privacy which need to be rectified.

“Right now, there is just one drone company using these airborne drones. What happens if a second or third comes in? If they are not regulated or not co-ordinated, a crash is a real possibility. These are hefty machines. If one or two came out of the sky, there could be real dangers.”

He said that privacy is another issue that must be considered.

“Each of these drones has a camera on it to oversee the drop of the paper bag. It is not meant to be switched on for the journey, but just when the bag is being dropped. This is a camera operated by a live pilot back at the base. Who knows if it is on or off? We do not know. These things are flying over our homes all the time with a camera, and we have no idea if that camera is on or off, so there is a real privacy concern there.”

Responding to O’Gorman’s comments on the issue, Minister of State at the Department of Transport Seán Canney said, “it is interesting from a rural TD perspective to find out what is actually happening in the Deputy’s constituency with drones and the delivery of fast food,” as Canney is a TD from a small village near Tuam in County Galway.

Canney stated that there is a suite of legal frameworks, both at an Irish and EU law, surrounding the usage of drones for commercial purposes.

He said that Ireland has the potential to be a leader in the field of commercial drone delivery but acknowledged that a balance must be struck between technological innovation and keeping people’s privacy safe.

Canney added that a policy framework surrounding drones would be published by the government in the coming months and will work to include feedback from a public consultation which was carried out in 2024.

A September meeting of the Castlenock councillors on Fingal County Council discussed the issue of drones in Dublin 15.

Prior to her November re-election to the Dáil, Solidarity TD Ruth Coppinger told the meeting “people have made the point that airport noise has increased, now you’ve got this on top of the other noise introduction. Are the skies going to become as busy as the roads?”

“I think people are just shocked how noisy and intrusive drones are in the area; a lot of people are worried about drones in general.

In March 2024, it was reported that the company made 40,000 deliveries to Dublin 15 residents in their first week of operation.

At the time, Labour councillor Mary McCamley expressed concern about the number of licenses the IAA are granting drone operators.

“If the IAA can grant a licence to Manna, they can do the same to another company today and another company the day after that. How many companies could the IAA be allowed to fly over our homes?”

Manna’s founder and CEO Bobby Healy told RTÉ in February that the company looks to serve one million customers across Dublin by the end of 2025, and will be looking to build bases in Glasnevin and Tallaght.

Healy said that convenience was a big part of Manna’s appeal, with coffee and fast food the most popular items delivered by the service.

However, O’Gorman said that Manna, and indeed any other company which looks to set up shop in the drone delivery sphere, must adhere to planning permissions set out by local authorities. 

“There are at least two drone bases where they come to and from in my constituency right now. There is no clarity in terms of whether planning permission is needed under the planning acts,” he said.

Minister Canney replied, “it is a matter for the planning authority,” if planning is granted.

“If somebody has a commercial enterprise in a location, they have to have planning permission for it. That is coming from the experience of working on the council for a number of years. Aviation is a highly regulated industry and there is a comprehensive legislative framework in place at both EU and national level to regulate safe drone operations.”