Drone protest group escalates campaign

A Dublin 15 residents’ group has escalated its campaign against fast-food delivery drones by calling a public meeting to address what it describes as the “constant noise and nuisance” that has plagued the area for 18 months.

Drone Action D15 will hold the public meeting on Monday, October 6, at 7pm in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Blanchardstown, following a surge in complaints over the daily intrusions into residential life.

The group claims the drone operator, Manna, has made misleading statements about the noise levels of its aircraft and has failed to conduct proper community consultation.

The main complaint centres on noise, which residents say is shattering the peace of their homes and gardens. Michael Dooley, a spokesperson for Drone Action D15, said people in the area feel they are not being listened to.

“We can hear the drones loud and clear as they pass over our homes, gardens, parks and recreational spaces multiple times a day,” he said. “We chose to live in quiet residential areas and we were here before peace-shattering and privacy-busting Manna started its operations without community consultation”.

Manna claims its drones are quieter than traffic and blend into the background noise of urban life. However, residents dispute this, arguing there is no traffic in housing estates or back gardens for the drone noise to blend with.

“Imagine someone has parked a motorbike outside your home and revs it up, without warning, throughout the day, everyday, whenever they want,” continued Dooley. “It has become a source of stress and anxiety. It is unbearable and unhealthy, and we have had enough”.

The issue has been raised in the Dáil, where local TDs have voiced strong concerns.

During a recent debate, Solidarity-People Before Profit TD Ruth Coppinger said the service was operating from three bases without planning permission and that no consultation was ever held with the community. She also pointed out that the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), which regulates drone safety, does not monitor noise.

“The community has never had its say on this,” Deputy Coppinger told the Dáil. “This technology mainly impacts people who cannot even enjoy their back gardens any longer or cannot even sit outside and read a book because of this constant drone noise. This is a real incursion into people’s mental health.”

Local Green Party TD Roderic O’Gorman echoed these concerns, stating that commercial drone activity must be regulated on issues of noise pollution, privacy, and safety.

He criticised a recently published government policy framework as not being “good enough” to deal with the existing regulatory gaps.

“We have never had a conversation about how much of the traffic that currently is on our roads we want to move up into the sky because that is literally what is happening in Dublin 15 right now,” Deputy O’Gorman said. “Thousands of journeys that took place on our roads are now going over our roofs and going over our gardens. This represents a massive societal change”.

Responding in the Dáil, Minister of State at the Department of Justice, Niall Collins, acknowledged the “real concerns and uncertainty among communities, particularly around issues of noise, intrusion and privacy”.

He said the new policy framework aims to address these gaps and that its implementation is now under way. From a safety perspective, he stated that drone operations are regulated under EU law by the IAA, with rules focusing on the risk of the operation.

Drone Action D15 also claims that Manna has not honoured requests from residents for their homes to be designated as ‘no-fly zones’.

While the company’s CEO, Bobby Healy, told an Oireachtas Committee in July that such requests are respected, the residents’ group says Manna has described the geoblocks as a mere “courtesy” rather than a “permanent gesture” in emails to residents.

The group has recorded over 230 individual ‘no-fly’ requests since late July, an 800% increase on the 25 the company said it had received up to July 9.

Healy admitted to the Oireachtas Committee that drones produced a noticeable sound but said leading experts found the noise to be “quieter than a conversation, for ten seconds as they pass overhead”.

“We have developed and tested new technology that is 40% quieter again and we are awaiting regulatory approval for full deployment,” he added. “We continue to invest significantly in technology to become quieter. We foresee a future where people will barely hear drones at all.”

Gwen Schaarschmidt, another spokesperson for Drone Action D15, was critical of the company’s engagement with locals.

“Manna’s claim that they conducted genuine community engagement is untrue, and to say otherwise is an insult to the people of D15,” she said.

The public meeting on October 6 is seen by organisers as a crucial step for residents to have their voices heard on the “motorway in the skies” above their homes.