More on the Dublin Airport passenger cap row with Micheal O’Leary telling the Sunday Independent he is prepared to take his legal case to the European courts to break the impasse.
The Ryanair chief executive said he has received “copper-fastened” legal advice that Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan is obligated under European law to intervene in the planning row at the national aviation hub.
The airline is now set to launch an additional legal case this week in the High Court, looking to expedite its existing case and have an injunction issued against the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA), forcing it to disregard the 2007 An Bord Pleanála decision that created the cap.
Last week, the regulator said it would limit carriers using Dublin Airport to 25.2 million seats for the 2025 summer season, which runs from late March to October in anticipation that the cap will be breached again in 2025.
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Mr O’Leary said he is confident the courts would rule in the airline’s favour if it gets to that stage. “Europe will absolutely say this is in conflict ... with the EU-US Open Skies Agreement,” he said. “Our lawyers are 120 per cent confident of that.”
Housebuilders face funding crunch
A funding crunch, emanating largely from a rise in interest rates over two years, is having a deep impact on Irish home builders, the Business Post reports, with debt and equity sources now “extremely challenging” to access.
With development lending at the three pillar banks still a fraction of what it was before the financial crisis, high profile developers including Michael O’Flynn and Ballymore’s Irish managing director Patrick Phelan have said additional funding sources are required if the Government wants to meet its housing targets.
“If we are going to get to 60,000 homes a year, we need to build more apartments. And to do that housebuilders are going to need substantially more debt and probably a lot more equity,” Mr Phelan said.
Tech giants return to Web Summit
Also in the Business Post, just a year after pulling out of the conference last year following comments from Paddy Cosgrave about Israel’s war in Gaza, a number of tech giants appear to be back in the mix as sponsors of Web Summit’s 2024 events.
Mr Cosgrave resigned as chief executive of the events company following backlash against his online remarks. He subsequently returned to his previous role some six months later. Intel, Siemens, Stripe, and Volkswagen Group among others also withdrew from last year’s instalment of the conference.
Now, Amazon, Meta and IBM are being listed as sponsors for this year’s Web Summit conference in Lisbon next month, having publicly cut ties last year. Eshan Ponnadurai, the global head of consumer marketing at Meta, is also listed as a speaker.
Hines revives Liffey Valley apartment scheme
The Sunday Times carries the story that Hines, the US property investment group, has revived plans to build 1,400 apartments in a complex beside the Liffey Valley shopping centre in southwest Dublin.
Hines, which is the asset manager of the shopping centre after selling it to German pension fund BVK in 2016, has written to South Dublin County Council to “consider rezoning” nine hectares of land beside the centre for residential use.
Hines and BVK, which jointly own the site, have been unable to apply for planning permission for the €700 million apartment complex because the council had previously said it already has a enough residentially zoned land to meet its housing needs.
In a letter to the council last month, Hines Ireland senior managing director Brian Moran urged the council to take account of other factors, including transport accessibility, when considering future proposals on zoning.
Mr Moran said Hines would “immediately” submit an planning application if the land was to be rezoned.
Ibec group calls for €13m national fintech hub
Finally, Financial Services Ireland (FSI), the Ibec group representing the financial services industry in Ireland, has said a new national fintech hub would allow the Republic to “solidify its position as a global leader in financial technology”, the Sunday Independent reports.
The proposed centre in Dublin, which FSI indicates could cost €13.5 million to operate over five years, should either be operated by a private company on a contract basis or funding through Enterprise Ireland, it said in a new report.
The group said the new hub would be a way to bring start-ups, corporates and other stakeholders together at a “central point for collaboration”.
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