A champion horse racing trainer has claimed that low flying aircraft departing and arriving from Dublin airport causes him difficulty in his business.
Jim Dreaper who has saddled Ten Up to win the Cheltenham Gold Cup and Brown Lad to a hat trick of Irish Grand National wins from his stables in Kilsallaghan, county Meath, has revealed the problems he faces on a daily basis.
“ It is not so much that it affects the horses but you try having a conversation on the mobile phone when there is noise from a plane almost directly overhead it’s impossible to do it.
‘To be honest sometimes when I am in the house it is difficult to have a proper chat with the wife the noise is so distracting.
‘If it was happening occasionally it might not be so bad but it occurs several times a day and it does impact on our day to day lives.
‘I guess it is just something we have to live with.
‘I am probably not the worst affected some of my neighbours would have even bigger problems with the noise.”
At least two of those neighbours certainly appear to be badly affected.
Leona Cantwell has to wear earphones throughout the day to try and drown out the din made by planes.
She said, “It is pure torture living here the noise never stops it is every two minutes, they fly over my garden and over my house.
“Isabelle my seven year old daughter cries every night and asks me if the planes are going to come tomorrow, her and her brother Daniel wear earphones too and that is not normal.
“At one stage I brought the kids to stay with my mother for a week just to give us all a break from the noise.
“The problem arises from pilots taking a short cut. They are meant to go five nautical miles in a straight line and then turn but they are not doing that.”
Alan Lynch bought his house only after doing a careful study of the accepted flight paths for planes, something he now feels is not worth the paper it is written on.
He claimed, “My wife Carol and I have had to attend the doctors over this her blood pressure has gone through the roof over the whole thing.
“The rules state that there should only be a maximum of 65 flight at night time but honestly there is double that amount at the moment.
“We purchased our property two years ago after a detailed look at the flight path situation and that clearly shows we should not be on the flight path but the reality is we are.
“It is worse when planes are taking off than when they are landing as at take off the screech out of the engines is incredible.
“Look those of us living here just 7km from an airport understand there will be a noise issue but if they stuck to the rules laid down our ears wouldn’t be blasted out of it every two minutes.
“As a family we don’t want to move from here but even if we did who apart from the worlds most avid plane spotter would want to buy our house
“The DAA have recently appointed a liaison officer to deal with residents and while she is very reasonable and god at the job she still has to report back to her bosses who are the same people who do nothing at all to help us.”
