Mr. Jim Meade:

I thank the Senator. We very much recognise that this did not work. We overstretched the capacity of the system. We dialled out too much time. We tried to get the quarter or maybe the half-gallon into the pint glass on this. We can see the volume of customers trying to travel with us. We do not have an exact number on the complaints. In overall terms, most complaints came from what we call the northern road - the northern route on that corridor - followed by Maynooth. The Connolly Station side did not work as well as we had anticipated. We were trying to make the whole system more efficient and add capacity. We have put our hands up to say it did not work because we recognise that.

The complaints were on some of the areas the Senator mentioned. They were about overcrowding on trains, trains being late and people arriving for the next train getting on the same train and crowding out those trains. The interchange at Connolly Station did not work. As the timing of trains was not working spot on, people were not getting a cross-platform transfer in two or three minutes. They were waiting the extra ten minutes for the next DART service and this was elongating their journey time. We monitored that very closely in the first couple of days because we wanted to see an improvement. There were certain changes we could make without having to restructure the timetable. That is what we did in September and it did not work. We very quickly saw it did not work. We got complaints from all sides, so then we started looking at how we would restructure. As the Senator will be aware, we are now reinstating the pre-26 August timetable up to mid-morning, until between 9.30 a.m. and 10 a.m., as per my statement. We are reintroducing the through trains through Connolly Stations. While we wanted the interchange to try to get more capacity out of the system, it created more problems than it solved. We now have trains going through to Grand Canal Dock and Pearse Street, as we had before, both cross-city from Maynooth and on the northern road, and indeed all the way through to Bray.

The real push for us is looking at closing those gaps that were created in the morning. We have elongated the times on the Enterprise service to accommodate it and pretty much put the Enterprise back into a slot that was there previously rather than moving any existing trains. We got some commentary back about the train timings that were requested and we had several meetings, including this week, with public representatives that flagged that issue to us. I am happy to tell the Senator that we looked back and closed the gap, bringing it from 4.19 p.m. It is not quite back to where it was but I think we will bring it back to 4.14 p.m. That will give the students a few minutes to get from the school to the station and the train will be there within five to ten minutes, depending on whether the students are quick walkers or slow walkers. That will help. The issue with Wednesdays the Senator mentioned was also raised with us. That does not look to be as easy to do, but we think we have four of five days solved and we will continue to look at whether there is something we can do for the school as regards the time on Wednesdays.

I think I addressed the issues the Senator raised, unless I missed something.