Amid plans for food-delivery drones to spread across Dublin, some worry about safety

The Manna headquarters is in a two-storey red-brick building on Slaney Road in the Glasnevin Industrial Estate.

The company has plans to start food deliveries by drone from the industrial estate this year, its CEO Bobby Healy said last September.

Exactly when is unclear. “But we will be ensuring all relevant stakeholders are informed and regulations followed,” said a spokesperson for Manna on Tuesday.

“We have a slew of local businesses ready to have their goods delivered in a similar fashion to how we operate in Blanchardstown where we operate between the hours 9am and 9pm 6 days a week,” he said.

As Manna moves to expand its food-delivery service from D15, where it has long operated, and seeks approval to operate from Glasnevin and Tallaght too, drones may soon be buzzing over many more homes in Dublin.

Debate in recent months has largely centred on concerns about noise from drones, whether the public have adequate opportunities to weigh in on their spread, and whether takeaway coffee by air is what Dublin needs right now.

But Cat O’Driscoll, the Social Democrats councillor and chair of Dublin City Council’s planning committee, said that the most pressing question for her would be around safety.

“When you have commercial operators, potentially delivering hot food, safety for me is paramount,” she says. “These are things flying over your house, they could fall out of the sky at any second.”

A spokesperson for Manna said that “Manna’s drone operations are fully regulated by the European Aviation Safety Agency and the Irish Aviation Authority.”

“They have undergone successful safety audits by these regulators on a regular basis,” they said. Manna has done about 200,000 deliveries since 2021, said the spokesperson.

Only three accidents have been reported to the Air Accident Investigations Unit (AAIU) during that time, one of which injured a person.

What’s the record?

When there’s an accident or incident involving an unmanned aircraft system, the operator has to report that to the AAIU which has published a list of them.

So far, Manna has had three incidents, its list says. Those were flagged recently by Alison Kenealy, who lives in the Bancroft housing estate in Tallaght.

The estate is near to where the social-enterprise Partas has applied for planning permission for an aerial food delivery hub, which would be operated by Manna.

Kenealy is opposed to it. Her concerns are around noise, she says, and the impact on property values. But also around safety, she says, after she looked up the drones online. “They’re actually quite big.”

One of the incidents on the AAIU’s list was in July 2022, when a propeller blade separated from a Manna drone in Tankardstown in Balbriggan and struck someone on the ground causing “a minor injury”.

“The probable cause of the accident was a fatigue fracture of a bolt securing the propeller blade,” the report found.

Safety mechanisms – a parachute to slow its fall and siren to warn those below – did kick in, the report says,

The two other incidents involved “impact with terrain” in Blanchardstown on 20 May 2024, and an “uncontrolled descent by drone” in Balbriggan on 4 June 2023.

A spokesperson for Manna said that the first of these was when a remote pilot correctly ended a flight, using a parachute over open ground, as the drone had insufficient lift. “The technical issue which contributed to the insufficient lift, was rectified.”

The second was when a drone clipped the face of a building because the 2-D

imagery which the remote pilot was viewing did not have automatic integration with the lidar altitude data which would result in an automatic 3-D image for decision making, the Manna spokesperson said.

“Manna made this integration automatic before resumption of operations after this incident,” he said.

There’s also a video of a botched delivery posted on TikTok on 12 August 2024. That shows a Manna drone hovering over a suburban garden.

A green light flashes, the cargo doors open and – rather than being lowered on a string as they should have been – two brown bags freefall to the ground. Splat.

A spokesperson for Manna said that they haven’t had any issues with propellers breaking since the issue in July 2022. They’ve only had to use parachutes those two times during years operating, he said.

The botched delivery was an isolated incident, they said. “In this instance the delivery wasn’t properly packaged and not an issue with our drone.”

But “It also shows why we have a camera that turns on for 15 seconds to ensure the delivery area is clear of people and objects to prevent unsafe delivery as part of our safety procedures,” he said.

The spokesperson also pointed to studies showing the risks of road traffic collisions faced by gig delivery drivers rushing to deliver takeaways by bike.

Who oversees safety?

Last May, councillors at a meeting of Fingal’s Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart/ Castleknock/Ongar Area Committee dug into how the IAA ensures that drone deliveries are safe.

“These are aircraft. So, presumably, they’ve vulnerabilities. Whether it’s, what do you call it, one smart alec with a slingshot, or even a flock of birds,” said Fine Gael Councillor Ted Leddy.

“Is there any concerns about that? And is there any kind of guarantees you can give the public who have expressed those worries to us?” he said.

Enda Walsh, manager of the unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) division at the Irish Aviation Authority, said that regulation is risk-based.

So, what permissions an operator needs depends on the level of risk, rather than whether it is a commercial or recreational activity.

There are three categories: open, specific, and certified. Manna’s drones fall within the “specific” category, he said.

As such, they apply to the Irish Aviation Authority for an operating license. The IAA assesses the risk, agrees mitigating measures, and then approves the application or not, said Walsh.

Walsh outlined the ways that Manna reduces risks for people on the ground.

The drones have a flight termination system, he said. “So if they lose control, or something happens, they have a separate communication to the drone that can kill it immediately out of the sky.”

They also have a parachute too that opens if it is going to fall to slow it down, he said. A high-pitched siren sounds to alert those below too, says Walsh.

Routes go over where people may be more sheltered rather than down a shopping high street, he said.

If operators want to make significant changes to their operations – to add more drones, more launch pads, or fly in different weather, they have to go back to the IAA for permission, he said.

A spokesperson for Manna said that it has a flight-testing facility in Moorock in Co. Offaly. “We put all aircraft through a suite of tests in a variety of conditions before they are ever flown in operations.”

“We have done several hundred thousand simulations and test flights,” he said.

Busy skies

How to manage the skies as they become busier has become an increasingly contentious issue.

To manage all that, the IAA has been creating geozones, with portions of airspace where drone operations are allowed, restricted, or excluded.

Its map shows a prohibition zone around the airport, and pockets around prisons. It also includes a “restricted” blob that stretches from Blanchardstown west and north, where Manna has permission to operate.

Brian Whyte, the chair of Drone Professionals Ireland, said he is worried about how carving up the skies into geozones is playing out.

His main issue is that within a “restricted” geozone, anyone who wants to fly – whether a hobbyist or not – has to submit a special form to AirNav within three to five days in advance to get permission, he says.

That all takes time that can impact commercial operations, he says. “Time is critical to us.”

If there wasn’t a geozone, drones in the open category – the smaller ones – wouldn’t have to do that, he says.

And then, also, around Blanchardstown, they would need to phone Manna on the day they want to take off to get permission to fly, he says.

There’s disagreement around the characterisation of this last step, as to whether Manna has to give permission or approval as such or whether the drone pilot just needs to notify them, he says. “There’s no published policy and procedure.”

It’s unclear what happens if the drone pilot can’t get through to Manna on the day they want to fly and there are questions of fairness around who is liable if there is a collision between operators, he says.

It’s restrictive for commercial operators wanting to survey infrastructure or shoot at events, he said, but also for hobbyists. “Really, it’s the death of the hobbyist in those areas.”

That’s if they know the rules well enough to be put off by them though.

Another danger is that, given that people don’t need any training to fly a small off-the-shelf drone, they just don’t realise this, he said.

He thinks that they should be required to have training, he says. Operators of small drones can still do significant damage, says Whyte, and the need for training would link them in with regulators.

“It’s topical,” he says.

Take the case of the enthusiast who crashed a DJI Mini drone into a Super Scooper aircraft, which was at work dousing flames during the Palisades Fire in Los Angeles.

The drone collision, which occurred in restricted airspace, caused a 3-inch by 6-inch hole in the plane’s left wing, putting it out of action.

Also for those who do need them, the costs of licenses can put some off from applying, said Whyte, and should be revised given the risks that people may just fly anyway.

Julie Garland, the chair of the Unmanned Aircraft Association of Ireland – of which Manna is a member – said that geozones are in place to ensure safety of the operations.

“Just because something is hard, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it,” she said.

Garland says that the notice system just means that flights are coordinated and so they’re safe. “Manna do not have exclusive use of that airspace.”

As she sees it, the IAA just needs to better publicise what the requirements are if people want to fly within geozones, to ensure compliance, she says.

But Whyte, of Drone Professionals Ireland, says the current system looks like monopolisation. “There has to be something there that is fair for everyone,” he said.

“You know, we don’t feel we should be pushed aside for food deliveries,” he said. “It shouldn’t take priority over all the other services being provided.”

Both Whyte and Garland say that once there is a traffic management system in place to deal with all this, just as there is for airplanes, they’ll be able to get rid of geozones.

But no one has put it in place anywhere in Europe yet, says Whyte. “It seems a long way off to us at the moment.”

[UPDATE: This article was updated on 20 February at 3.22pm to add detail around the notification system for flying in geozones, and to correct that a form needs to be submitted to AirNav rather than the IAA. Apologies for the error.]