Protest in Kilkenny over US billionaire investment in Waterford Airport

Sarah Slater

Greenpeace International activists flew a ‘Stop the Billionaire Takeoff’ message near Kelcy Warren’s Irish estate in Co Kilkenny to what they claim is the “Big Oil bully’s takeover” of Waterford Airport.

On the morning of the recent sod turning at Waterford Airport, which has been closed to commercial flights for the past 10 years, a paraglider swooped over the billionaire’s estate in Castletown Cox.

Warren has owned the estate since 2018. Planning permission for a private whiskey distillery was granted at the estate in January, this year.

He is the chief executive and chairperson of Energy Transfer, one of the largest oil and gas pipeline companies in the US.

The activist, tied to a bright yellow Greenpeace parachute, flew a flag with the message ‘Stop the Billionaire Takeoff’.

Warren has not been officially named as the airport’s new owner, but is a private investor behind the €30 million redevelopment.

Susannah Compton, Head of Civic Resistance at Greenpeace International, said that their message to the “Trump-donating” billionaire is that his finances and his “proximity to President Trump can buy a lot, but it can’t buy anonymity”.

Compton added: “His decade of legal attempts to squash free speech and silence opposition to his energy giant’s pipelines will always follow him.

“The billionaire takeoff is accelerating the already devastating impacts of climate change. A healthy future is dependent on curtailing the influence of billionaires whose businesses cook the planet and who use their power to attempt to silence dissent and free speech.

"It’s time to resist.”

The runway at Waterford Airport is to be lengthened to more than 2,200 metres and widened to 45 metres to allow for large commercial aircraft.

The redevelopment project aims to be complete with summer of next year, set as the date for when you might be able to jet in and out of.

Around 140,000 people passed through Waterford Airport annually during its busiest years, when it opened in December 1981.