Oireachtas Committee discussion on Drones shows big gaps in regulation

Green Party Leader Roderic O’Gorman TD has highlighted big regulatory gaps in the laws that govern commercial drones.

Yesterday, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport held a hearing to discuss the issue of commercial drones. This hearing on drones resulted from a letter I sent to Chair of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, requesting a specific hearing on this issue. You can watch the session here and read some coverage of it here. 

The Committee heard from the Irish Aviation Authority, Dublin City Council, academics from Maynooth University and the University of Limerick and from Bobby Healy from Manna drones.

For me, the Committee hearing has even more clearly revealed the huge holes in regulations related to noise and to planning, when it comes to the operation of commercial drones. A witness from Dublin City Council stated that there are no planning frameworks to assist local authorities in assessing applications for drone operations and that that councils are ‘working in a vacuum’.

The Committee also heard that S.108(4)(a) of the Environmental Protection Agency Act specifically excludes the [EPA] or local authorities from regulating noise from aircraft, which also means they cannot regulate drone noise.

The fact that the Environmental Protection Agency Act specifically excludes aircraft noise, and as such, drone noise, is hugely significant. It means that one of the biggest concerns raised by people about drones cannot be comprehensively regulated by the EPA or by local authorities. This is another gap in regulation.

Following the hearing, I will continue to push the Government to urgently publish its Policy Framework on Drones and that this needs to comprehensively cover key issues like safety, noise, privacy and the planning system.

The hearing raises a bigger issue. How much of the traffic that currently exists on our roads, do we want to transfer to our skies? This fundamental question needs to addressed at a time when more communities will see commercial delivery drones in the skies over their community.