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# With more flights on the horizon, communities around Dublin Airport push for changes to air-quality monitoring
- URL: https://www.dublininquirer.com/with-more-flights-on-the-horizon-communities-around-dublin-airport-push-for-changes-to-air-quality-monitoring/
- Published: 2026-10-16T00:24:47.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-16T00:26:25.000Z
- Description: There are questions about who's doing the monitoring, what they're checking for, and whether all the monitors are even working.
- Author: Lois Kapila
- Tags: environment, airplanes, Fingal, air quality

Some days, wafts of aviation fumes reach all the way to Labhaoise Ní Cheallaigh's home in the Boroimhe Estate, which sits to the north-east of Dublin Airport, she says. "If you can smell it, that means there are particles in the air."

She says she has two air purifiers in the house. One in her room, one in the kids'.

"For now, that's all we can really afford, that's all that's manageable," she said. But throw open the windows to air the place, and those purifiers can seem obsolete anyway.

Ní Cheallaigh has lived in the estate for 15 years, she says, and increasingly, concern about air quality in the neighbourhood plays on her mind.

Some may say that she knew what she was getting into when she moved in near the country's main airport, she said. "But no, it's significantly changed after all these years."

The North Runway opened in August 2022, and now the passenger cap is set to be lifted, leading to even more flights to and from the big airport campus on her doorstep – and surely, she says, with all those extra planes that's going to worsen air quality.

The airport brings jobs and supports the economy, she says, it's not as if she wants it to disappear. 

Just more clear and transparent consideration for neighbours, she says. "We can make it work. We can live side by side, but if it's done right, and it's done safely. And we do everything we can to protect our own health."

Her trust in the airport was dented when she recently started to look a bit deeper into air quality, she said, and realised that one of the main sampling points operated by DAA on the airport campus [has been broken](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28805588-2026-q1-air-quality-report/?ref=dublininquirer.com) since early this year. 

Ní Cheallaigh doesn't understand why it's down to DAA to monitor air quality in neighbourhoods outside of the campus, too. "The only way that I would be satisfied is that if it was independent testing," she said.

A spokesperson for DAA said that: "Earlier this year, one element of the airport’s continuous monitoring equipment reached the end of its operational life and is currently being replaced in consultation with the Environmental Protection Agency." 

They've put in a temporary monitoring station in the meantime, they said. "The wider network of community monitoring locations has remained fully operational throughout."

A spokesperson for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said it is "aware of issues affecting data availability from the continuous monitoring station and has been engaging with DAA regarding the restoration of continuous monitoring at the site."

They've requested upgraded infrastructure to support the operation of continuous monitoring equipment, said the spokesperson. "Procurement to install new instruments at the location is underway."

Even if the monitors are all working, there's also a bigger question of whether they are monitoring for all the right things, says Carlos López de la Osa, the aviation technical manager at the European NGO, Transport and Environment.

The science around what is needed has been changing.

## What is measured?

It was a [planning condition for](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28805590-planning-condition-for-north-runway/?ref=dublininquirer.com) the North Runway, that DAA monitor air quality in and around the airport, using both "continuous sampling equipment and passive sampling methods". 

So, it has one continuous sampling point within the airport boundary, where it measures seven parameters, including PM10 and PM2.5, NO2, and sulphur dioxide, its reports say. 

It also runs 11 "passive tube" points – a few also inside the airport boundary, and others scattered to the west, north and east of the campus. At those, the mix of nine gases and matter that it monitors is a bit different – no PM10 and PM2.5 – but it does include NO2, benzene, and sulphur dioxide.

Results have to be sent to the planning authority each quarter, and posted on the airport website, the planning condition says. It publishes some, but not all, of the data. 

The equipment at the continuous sampling point has been glitchy recently. The one "continuous air quality monitor" [was down at the start](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28805588-2026-q1-air-quality-report/?ref=dublininquirer.com) of this year, and had gaps [last year](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28805589-2025-annual-air-quality-monitoring-report/?ref=dublininquirer.com), say a couple of those more recent reports published by DAA. 

There isn't any sampling point in the Boroimhe Estate, says Ní Cheallaigh. She thinks there should be, she said, and that there should be more of them around.

There are a couple of the passive tube points not far away. 

There's one to the south at the Forrest Little Golf Club, and another to the west, at Ridgewood Estate West, a quiet and leafy area of semi-detached homes and open greens, where the tops of the trees are reddening right now with the onset of autumn.

The latest sampling results for NO2 for both of those spots in the first quarter of this year [sit below](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28805588-2026-q1-air-quality-report/?ref=dublininquirer.com) current national annual limits, the 2026 WHO target, and the 2030 EU limit. 

The highest levels of NO2 in that period were found at the sampling points at the airport bus depot, and at the airport's western boundary fence – which hit 32.81µg/m³ and 22.68µg/m³, respectively. So, below current annual limits, but above the 2026 WHO target, and 2030 EU limit.

Nowhere had levels of benzene above limits. 

But residents in Ridgewood Estate do complain that particulate matter gathers on window sills and blinds, says Duncan Smith, the Labour Party TD, who has raised the issue of air quality in the Dáil. "I've seen it myself."

In his bit of Swords, the air smells of aviation fumes when the wind blows a certain way, he said. 

To some extent, it's always been the case, he said. But people in Swords say that since the North Runway opened, that is more of a constant – and more intense. "They can say it's very different from it was before."

Paddy Fagan, a member of the Santry Forum, says they have always wanted a sampling point that would catch fumes from the traffic headed through the Dublin Port tunnel, a popular route to the airport. 

Santry is surrounded by big roads, he said. 

There's the R132 one side, and the M1 the other side, and the population of Santry has nearly quadrupled with all the new apartments, he said.

With heavy traffic in the mornings, there's always a traffic jam from the Whitehall lights to the entrance to the port tunnel, he said. "We still haven't got BusConnects yet, which we are told would relieve it."

"DAA is a great success commercially, but healthwise, we're polluted," he said, "and we're going to pay the price in years to come."

Smith, the TD, says residents living around the airport just don't really trust the air-quality monitoring right now. "We don't think they're testing in the right areas, at the right times. That's what we're trying to get to the root of."

## Going forward

 López de la Osa, the aviation technical manager at the European NGO, Transport and Environment, says that even if the monitors are all working and in the right place though, they may not be trained on the right thing. 

"Unfortunately today, the way in which we generally measure air pollution is not the best way to look at what's happening around airports," he said.

Aircraft are different from road traffic, in that the particles from aircraft engine combustion are smaller, he said. "They are what we call ultrafine particles." 

PM10 and PM2.5, which cars and trucks emit, have diameters of 10 micrometres, and 2.5 micrometres. They're tiny. 

Ultrafine particles from aircraft are tinier still, about 100 times smaller than PM2.5\. "They're 1,000 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair," says López de la Osa.

Because they are so small, when you breathe them in, they're sucked inside your lungs, passed into your blood and can travel onwards to any organ in the human body, he said. "That would make them much more dangerous."

Indeed, aircraft are a very strong source of "ultrafine particles", says Roy Harrison, a professor and environmental scientist at University of Birmingham. 

Evidence has been building in the past few years, as to their possibly negative health impacts, he says. "There's evidence of effects on both respiratory and cardio-vascular diseases." 

"But also, there's a very strong paper come out recently looking at effects on Alzheimer's, and related neuro-degenerative diseases," he said, "showing an increased prevalence of Alzheimer's among people with large exposures to ultrafine particles."

"The evidence is not as complete as I would like, but there's certainly evidence that ultrafine particles can reach the brain," he said.

Under an [update to](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dir/2024/2881/oj/eng?ref=dublininquirer.com) the European Ambient Air Quality Directive in October 2024, member states do have to set up air quality "supersites" that measure ultrafine particles, he said. Airports are obvious candidates, he said.

There aren't limits yet, for ultrafine particles, he says, because when the WHO looked at that last, it was before evidence was strong enough to recommend guidelines. There's an expectation that those limits will come in in due course, he says. 

"There's a lot of new research come out, increasing concern over the ultrafine particles," said Harrison.

A spokesperson for DAA says it has agreed to facilitate a new monitor for ultrafine particles at Dublin Airport, at the continuous monitoring site, "once planned site upgrades are completed and will continue to engage constructively with the EPA and other stakeholders as this area develops".

## Moving forwards

In early August, DAA's deputy chief executive, Nicholas Cole, wrote to Minister for Transport Darragh O'Brien to formally ask him to lift the airport's passenger cap from 32 million to 40 million people per annum.

[Now that he can do it, DAA has formally written to the minister asking him to lift the Dublin Airport passenger capThe company's application includes preliminary results of its assessments of the environmental impacts of raising the cap from 32 million to 40 million passengers per year.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9f/78/9f782dda-9dc9-44d1-b817-fe80588bdc76/content/images/icon/Favicon-2-fd7ce527-6a0b-44ef-a493-7be9bf201cd1.jpg)Dublin InQuirerLois Kapila![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9f/78/9f782dda-9dc9-44d1-b817-fe80588bdc76/content/images/thumbnail/Dublin-Airport-1-1-89477d60-08b7-4e25-af54-37954c6068e2.jpg)](https://www.dublininquirer.com/now-that-he-can-do-it-daa-has-formally-written-to-the-minister-asking-him-to-lift-the-dublin-airport-passenger-cap/)

Paperwork sent with the letter outlined DAA's assessment so far of the environmental impact of such a move – including on air quality. 

That has found that lifting the cap "would result in no significant effects on air quality or odour", it said.

Compared to national air quality standards, "impacts range from neutral to slight adverse and are not significant", it said. 

While compared to limits in the new EU Ambient Air Quality Directive, "moderate to substantial adverse impacts are predicted at a limited number of receptors close to the airport for annual mean NO2", it said. It didn't say which receptors these are.

The assessment also noted that there are technological changes that the airport would continue to make, which would reduce emissions: electrification of the ground support fleet, and reducing use of what are called "auxiliary power units". 

López de la Osa said that planning applications and the like by airport operators across Europe can be vague in their detail of how, and by how much, technological improvements will offset emissions that come from any growth in air traffic. 

"There's no actual numbers," he said. "The impact assessment we've seen in these kinds of cases are very vague statements."

There are adaptations that airports and airlines can make to reduce emissions of gases and ultrafine particles, he says. 

The operational measures like those mentioned in DAA's application, and also higher use of sustainable aviation fuels which have a cleaner composition than normal jet fuel, he said. "But there are question marks over how to produce them at scale."

Reducing aromatics and sulphur in current jet fuel would help too, he said. 

But "unfortunately, even if we target all of those technological measures, if we will keep increasing the amount of air traffic, it's going to be very difficult, if not impossible, to reduce the amount of air pollution," he said. 

"As much as we need technological solutions, we need to take an eye on the growth of air traffic and we need to keep a critical eye on that," he said.

Ní Cheallaigh, who lives just north of the airport, said she would want to see more of the detail behind promises that operational and technological changes will reduce emissions. Timelines, figures. 

Harrison, the professor at the University of Birmingham, said that the Planning Inspectorate in the United Kingdom [has sought more detail](https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/28807476-tr020003-001028-2025-scoping-opinion/?ref=dublininquirer.com) from Heathrow Airport on how activities on its proposed new runway would impact levels of ultrafine particles. 

The Department of Transport hasn't directly addressed a query sent Tuesday asking whether ultrafine particles are to be considered as part of the final environmental assessment in relation to DAA's application to lift the passenger cap. 

Said the spokesperson: "The environmental impacts of amending or revoking the passenger cap will be assessed in line with the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive, which includes consideration of the direct and indirect significant effects that the making of an order will have on several factors, including air quality."