Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I very much thank and welcome the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to the Chamber to address this Topical Issue on the anomaly faced by Greystones DART commuters with regard to the pricing structure of their tickets. It is really an issue of fairness and equity. Ten years ago, the DART was extended to my hometown, Greystones, and has been a great success. Every morning, thousands upon thousands of commuters use the service and everything is going well in that regard. The difficulty and lack of fairness arise from the fact that Greystones commuters are paying through the nose for the service. This arises from outdated pricing structures. This would be somewhat understandable if the extension were new but it is now a decade old. It is utterly unacceptable that, ten years on, Iarnród Éireann, in conjunction with the National Transport Authority, has not rectified this pricing structure anomaly.

The Minister does not set the price of train tickets and I am not asking him to. However, I am asking him to bang heads together and ask the NTA and Iarnród Éireann to undertake the necessary review to remove this anomaly. For example, a return DART fare between Bray, the nearest station to Greystones, and Pearse Station, costs €5.80, while a return journey from Greystones to Pearse Station costs €9.60. This is an additional 66% for the luxury of going one extra stop. I have pursued this issue in many ways before tabling it in the House, including extensive correspondence with Iarnród Éireann and the NTA. On 25 May 2011, shortly after my election to the House, I received acknowledgements from the then chief executive of Iarnród Éireann that these anomalies existed and a review of commuter fares would be carried out at the end of that year. More than two years later, while I acknowledge efforts have been made and there is parity of fares in annual tickets, if I board the DART in Greystones today, I will pay 66% more to travel to the city centre than a person boarding the train in Bray. This is not justifiable or fair. We are happy to pay our way but this must be done in a fair manner. The people of Greystones should not pay more than the people of Sandymount or any other DART location, proportionate to their distance from the city centre, for the luxury of using the service.

Following a frustrating period trying to rectify this, I ask that the process be sped up and timeframes put in place. I understand it is a difficult time for Irish Rail financially but we cannot have a situation in which the pockets of Greystones commuters are being picked because of an anomaly in the fare structure. That anomaly needs to be rectified and fairness is needed. I look forward to the Minister's response.

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