Dublin Airport is Ireland’s busiest aviation hub, serving more than 36 million passengers each year across two terminals and four piers. With a constantly moving population of full-time employees, part-time contractors, vendors, and international passengers, the challenge is to maintain flow and control in one of the most tightly regulated environments in Europe.
Every access point must be secure. Every credential must be authenticated. Every system must perform. The DAA relies on Acre’s identity and access control infrastructure to support 30,000+ active credentials; 1,000+ secure access points and 24/7 operations across both Dublin and Cork Airports.
“Dublin Airport is a very tightly regulated business. We’re dealing with 36 million passengers per year, and we’re governed by international and national aviation regulation,” says Vincent McGrath, Security Operations Manager, DAA.
From the outset, the partnership focused on designing infrastructure that wouldn’t just meet today’s needs but grow alongside them. The Acre Enterprise Security Suite includes a three-tier fail-safe architecture that ensures access remains uninterrupted during outages, hardware failures, or network interruptions.
“In all the time the TDS team has been managing access control, we have never had one major failure of the system. And that’s in 20 years,” comments Vincent McGrath, Security Operations Manager, DAA.
The platform integrates tightly with the DAA’s larger airport operations, including fire safety systems, vehicle gate and transport management, loyalty programmes, U.S. Homeland Security pre-clearance, data, visibility, and control.
DAA’s team uses real-time dashboards and robust reporting tools to carry out a range of operations such as managing access across restricted zones, monitoring usage trends, maintaining audit readiness for compliance, and customising workflows for operational needs.
This control allows the airport to move personnel efficiently while maintaining full oversight across complex zones like airside/landside separations, baggage halls, and customs-controlled areas.
“The system is adaptable, configurable, and customisable. When a change is required, it needs to happen immediately – not next quarter. Acre understands that,” says McGrath.
This is more than a vendor relationship. Over two decades, Acre and DAA have worked in lockstep to deliver full integration across all terminals and piers and a graphic console to manage personnel movement. The partnership also brings support for 30,000+ credentialed employees and contractors, and real-time response to regulatory and operational changes.
“It’s a close working relationship. You’re delivering key functionality into a live, complex airport environment. The collaboration has to be there,” says Val O’Rourke, at TDS by Acre.
“Customer success is instrumental. They treat us like an important customer and deliver what an aviation security system requires,” adds Vincent McGrath
DAA is actively exploring next-generation capabilities such as advanced analytics, optimisation engines, and AI-driven insights. Because the Acre platform is modular and API-ready, it provides the foundation for this evolution.
“What really excites me is evolving security solutions: optimisation, analytics, AI. It’s about going beyond security and redefining how the airport operates,” concludes Vincent McGrath.
The Dublin Airport story is a reflection of what can be possible when secure identity infrastructure is deeply aligned with operational strategy.
