Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Like the last speaker I support the Leader of this side of the House, Senator O'Brien, in his remarks about these so-called online savings and bonus operations. I am thankful to Senator O'Brien because when he raised it originally a council colleague of mine in Kerry contacted me to say she had looked up her Visa account and found out she had lost approximately €36 over a three-month period. I was laughing at the idea of it until I looked up my own and found I had been taken for €60. It happened when I booked online a train ticket from Charleville to Dublin and at the end of my transaction a pop-up box offered me a €10 discount on my next Iarnród Éireann fare. I thought it was very good form and very good business on the part of Iarnród Éireann to reward regular customers such as me. I was chuffed at the idea.

I am very vigilant when signing off on any financial offers online and am reasonably computer literate and it must have been a very well-worded document for me to have clicked it without realising it would cost me €12 per month in perpetuity had I not been alerted to the fact. I am very disappointed that Iarnród Éireann would be associated with such activity. With Senator O'Brien and others I call on Iarnród Éireann to desist immediately because there must be hundreds of people out there, some of whom may be sitting in this Chamber, who have not checked their balances yet. There are some regular train users here such as Senator Paul Coghlan. I hope everything is all right in his account.