LOCAL residents near Baldonnel who oppose Ryanair's plans are counting on support from the middle class southern suburbs once the people living there realise they will end up in its flight path.
The most likely flight path will run inland from Killiney, over Cornelscourt, Foxrock, Sandyford, Ballinteer and Firhouse, exposing residents to aircraft noise for the first time. Ryanair plans 400 flights a week, using its fleet of relatively noisy Boeing 7375.
Residents in Newcastle, Saggart and Rathcoole who oppose the project believe their counterparts in areas affected by its flight path have not been made aware of the consequences, "and when they do wake up to this, all hell will break loose", according to one of the local objectors.
They are circulating an article by the British actress Lesley Duff, who bought a house near Richmond, southwest London, without realising it lay under a Heathrow flight path. "Even the simple pleasures of life, like watching TV and having barbecues, were ruined," she says.
While a Lansdowne Market Research survey, commissioned by Ryanair, suggested that nearly 70 per cent of people in south west Dublin favoured the Baldonnel project, with only 14 per cent expressing concern over noise and traffic, local residents insist this does not represent their views.
At a well attended public meeting held in late November by the Saggart and Rathcoole Community Council, a show of hands revealed that 97 per cent were against the project, with 3 per cent in favour. Again, the main fears were noise, night flights and other environmental concerns.
A statement from the community council said that those attending the meeting, which was addressed by a Ryanair representative, were also sceptical about the employment projects because of Ryanairs record as a "no frills, low cost" airline.
Along with the Newcastle and District Residents Association, the community council has contacted residents in St Margaret's, near Dublin Airport, about noise and their long battle with Aer Rianta to pay for adequate sound insulation.
Both Rathcoole and much of Tallaght would end up within the noise zone of a new civil airport at Baldonnel, with Saggart and Rathcoole just out side. This noise zone is calculated on the take offs and landings by 400 aircraft per week, Ryanair's estimate of the airport's usage.
Local residents claim hospitals will be affected, particularly the £100 million hospital currently under construction in Tallaght which would be directly under the flight path. They say the chest hospital at Peamount would also be "badly affected".
"We are very concerned that the increased frequency of commercial passenger flights, including charter flights throughout the night hours, will have an unacceptably negative impact on the environment within a six or seven mile radius of the Baldonnel airfield," say opponents.
Issues such as noise will have to be dealt with comprehensively by Ryanair in an environmental impact statement on the £50 million project, which would accompany any planning application to South Dublin County Council. But first, the company needs Government approval to proceed to the next stage.
While Newcastle, Saggart and Rathcoole residents have all indicated their strong opposition, there was a more positive response to presentations by Ryanair in Blessington and Naas. The Tallaght and Clondalkin community councils are both reserving their positions.