Manna ceasing drone delivery flights

Yep I'd agree with all of this as well.

Unfortunately though we know that our Government are almost entirely reactive, and something like this certainly won't appear on the radar until a big company like the 2 you mention start up operations.

Even then any response will be heavily influenced by lobbying from same companies. No doubt the Government ministers and ministries will defer to the IAA and local authorities to make the decisions for them.

Kesimpta - It's a drug used amongst other things to slow down the progression of multiple sclerosis. It is self-administered on a monthly basis using a single use "pen"-type injector, but requires chilled storage and a certain self-discipline on side of the patient, as you need to stick to your monthly rhythm for the drug to work. If you know anything about MS, you'll know that brain fog is one of the symptoms of that disease, meaning it can't always be guaranteed that you take your dosage on time. That is actually the primary reason why I decided against that particular drug when I got my diagnosis.

Drone delivery can make all the difference here, removing the requirements for maintaining a cold chain, and allowing them to be dispatched on time. It's much easier to just take the injection pen and inject yourself than having to deal with staying on top of how many doses you have in your fridge and the schedule for taking them while dealing with a disease that can, and does, impair your thinking.

There are other, similarly self administered, drugs that have similar requirements where having them delivered via drone would result in a significant improvement. I just used Kesimpta as an example as I know this one as an MS patient.

There are other medical use cases as well. Blood and blood plasma come to mind, both in the shape of blood samples being taken from a GP practice to a lab to be analysed, and in the shape of blood from blood banks being taken to a hospital where they're needed. At the moment, this is done by road transport and even public transport at times, which can be problematic given that the chill packs used with those shipments don't last forever.

Then there are high-value deliveries. Whilst "porch pirates" aren't really a major problem on this side of the Atlantic, packages do get stolen from people's front doors, or taken by drivers. Whilst having a package of pirated "designer" clothes from Shein or Temu "disappear" isn't really much of an issue, losing a laptop or phone this way can be extremely costly. Drone deliveries remove this vulnerability from the "last mile" of deliveries by handing it over to an automated system.

One specific use case that was completely ignored by Manna is delivery in rural areas. Drones can ignore roads and just make a bee line for their destination, making it much easier to serve the type of decentralised housing that is prevalent in rural Ireland. I'd go so far as to say that this would have been a much better use case than serving urban areas.

Don't get me wrong, Manna have only themselves to blame for their issues. Their business case was poorly thought out, focussed far too much on low-value, low margin services. Their cavalier approach to legislation certainly didn't help them either, trying to gain some sort of exclusivity over the airspace in much of Cork city was a massive overreach, and the company rightly suffered a backlash because of this. However, that does not mean that the cries of NIMBYs, picket fence potentates, suburban satraps and other urban undesirables were justified, or that drone deliveries in generals are not feasible.