The Minister of State at the Department of Transport is to meet the chief executive of Ryanair on Wednesday to discuss the issue of the passenger cap at Dublin Airport.
James Lawless said the meeting will build on engagements he has had with other key stakeholders, including local residents, daa, Cork Airport, Shannon Airport Group and business organisations.
"I will continue this work with further meetings with others, such as other airlines including Aer Lingus, tourism industry groups and regulators," the minister said.
"My objective is to ensure that connectivity to and from Ireland can continue to grow and I believe this can be achieved in the short to medium term, through our other airports at Cork and Shannon which are ready and able to take more passengers."
In a statement, Mr Lawless reiterated that the Government is in favour of increasing the capacity of the airport.
"In light of this I am undertaking a series of engagements with key stakeholders to seek to limit the impact of this constraint," he said.
Annual capacity of the airport is currently capped at 32 million passengers a year due to a condition in the 2007 planning permission for the second terminal.
Yesterday, Dublin Airport operator daa said it would breach the cap this year by up to 1 million.
Ryanair has been highly critical of the Government regarding the cap, particularly Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan.
It has called for the Government to intervene to ensure the cap is raised quickly.
Mr O'Leary met Minister Ryan in March to discuss the issue.
Daa has submitted an infrastructure application which if approved would enable it to increase passenger numbers to 40 million a year.
However, it is also planning to submit an interim application to have the cap raised to a lower level.
Before it can do this though, it needs a decision from An Bord Pleanála in relation to an application regarding night flights at the airport.
"I keenly await the decision of An Bord Pleanála in relation to Dublin Airport night flights, which has been under consideration since August 2022," James Lawless added.
"This decision concerns the night-time operations on the new runway at the airport and is key to daa progressing the planning application to amend the existing planning condition limiting the number of passengers using the two terminals at Dublin Airport to 32 million passengers per annum."
"Ensuring the planning authorities are adequately resourced is key to ensuring decisions are made in a reasonable time frame. I expect that the increase in resources at An Bord Pleanála, both at board and staff level, will improve the decision-making capacity of the board significantly," he added.
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The Minister of State said he was not a substitute for the planning process but added it was "legitimate to express a preferred outcome" and a view that a decision should be expedited and the passenger cap at Dublin Airport be lifted.
Speaking on RTE's News at One, he said if there is no planning decision by next year, instead of refusing applications for extra flights ,they should be moved to different airports.
He said passenger cap was a legacy issue leftover from the planning application for Terminal Two at Dublin Airport.
"This cap is here for 17 years, and none of the agencies or the airlines or any of the stakeholders appear to have grasped the nettle until the last 12-24 months," he said.
He also said a decision on the noise quota, which is related to the cap, has been with An Bord Pleanála since August 2022, but he hopes a decision is forthcoming.
"I think it is reasonable to suggest that after two years of deliberations, it's time we heard a result from that, and that will then feed into the Fingal County Council process," he stated.
There were a number of technical solutions and conditions that could be used to mitigate noise, he added.
