Section 5 Declaration Application to Fingal County Council on the Operation of Runway 28R Departures at Dublin Airport, as lodged (NRTG/2026/fyz)

An application by the author under section 5 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 for a declaration by Fingal County Council, lodged in person on 2026-09-14. The question is whether the operation of aircraft departures from Runway 28R of Dublin Airport along the routes implemented by the published Standard Instrument Departure procedures, which turn approximately 30 degrees at the departure end of runway and, for more than half of westerly departures, a further 56 degrees at waypoint DW128, is development within the meaning of section 3 of the Act that is not exempted development, having regard to An Bord Pleanála permission PL06F.217429 and the Environmental Impact Statement on which it was granted, which assumed straight-ahead departures. Two questions are asked, each answerable alone: whether the operation is the making of a material change in the use of land at the airport and so development that is not exempted development; and whether, having regard to the permission and the Environmental Impact Statement on which it was granted, it is development that is not exempted development. Neither question asks the planning authority to declare any development unauthorised, which the application states is a matter reserved to the courts by section 160 of the Act. Two independent grounds are advanced. The application states the case; an Annex of fifty numbered paragraphs carries the answers to anticipated objections and the corroboration, and forms part of the application. Five drawings in Irish Transverse Mercator identify the site and the route geometry, and show the residential buildings newly brought under overflight. The population figures are those of the author's EIA-Conformance Gap Analysis (doi:10.5281/zenodo.19567671). This deposit is the application as lodged, with the applicant's postal address replaced by the address for service by email, together with the planning authority's date-stamped record of lodgement and the Cash Office receipt for the prescribed fee (receipt 26L1/0/15325); no register reference had been assigned at lodgement. The ten documents scheduled at section 8 of the application are not reproduced here; they are on the public planning file and, on issue of the declaration, on the planning authority's website under section 5(7B) of the Act.