Steve Quigley, air traffic controller at Dublin Airport
I've been an air-traffic controller since 1975, originally with the Air Corps and then here for the past 15 years. I was always an aviation enthusiast. I guess in the beginning I wanted to be flying aircraft, but I never qualified, and I think it's probably too late for me now.
A lot of people confuse air-traffic control with what happens in the control tower at the airport, the high glass building. But that looks after the runway and apron. The air-traffic control centre is in the floor below. It's a dark room with radar displays showing airspace from the Midlands up as far as Belfast and down to Wexford.
The Dublin centre is primarily concerned with arrivals to and departures from the airport. We control the airspace up to 24,000ft here. Anything above that is run by Shannon.
For an aircraft that starts at Dublin, the pilot talks first to the surface-movements controller, who gives him weather information and clearance. He is then passed over to the air-movements controller for departure.
Once the aircraft has climbed to 23,000ft - heading east, say - it is passed to the Manchester air-traffic controller. It is then passed from one control centre to another wherever it goes. Our job is to ensure planes arrive in an orderly fashion - typically six minutes apart - with a view to allowing one departure between every two arrivals.
Dublin has only one main runway - there are two, but each is used only in particular wind conditions - so arrivals and departures use the same one. It has a capacity of 48 movements an hour. With really good control techniques we can get that up to 50 if needs be.
We give instructions to the pilots in a certain format. It's all very prescribed, and we are not encouraged to engage in familiar interaction. It's important so that non-native English-speakers can understand what is being said.
What we give are instructions, not advice. They are mandatory, and the conversations and radar screens are recorded, for investigation later if an incident occurs.
We work a shift cycle, five days on and three days off, with start hours varying from 6.30am to 11.30pm. The younger ones seem to manage some kind of social time in between shifts, but as you get older it drains you, so I'm very disciplined about getting my rest. You have to be very sharp and focused in this job.
There is tremendous finesse involved, particularly when you've got 20 craft in the air. There is stress, but once you are trained up to a certain level of competency you cope.
The weight of responsibility affects different people in different ways, and unless you have some way of dealing with it in your leisure time the stress can be cumulative. Me? I build scale-model aircraft.
In conversation with Sandra O'Connell