Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Let me assure the Minister that de-staffing is taking place. Killiney has lost its staff.

There is nobody there at night and it is seriously compromising access and safety. People in wheelchairs cannot get on the train if there is not somebody there to put a ramp out. They already have to give huge amounts of notice to get on the train.

Pat in the Sandycove station told me this Saturday that he was only on at 6.30 p.m. because of the rugby match, and there were otherwise no staff on duty after 4 p.m. Somebody arrived in a wheelchair on spec at 6.30 p.m., needing to get back to Clontarf by 10.30 p.m. That person was only able to get on the train because Pat was there and able to arrange for staff at the other end in Clontarf to be there for that person in the wheelchair to get off. That person would have been stranded in the wheelchair with no access to the DART if Pat was not there, and he was there only because of the exceptional circumstance of the rugby match. That is the reality. There is no access if there are no staff. I met a member of our own staff here, a woman, who gets off at Seapoint, and she said that she would not go to Seapoint station at night if there was not a member of staff there, because there is a long, dark alleyway. Attacks have increased around Shankill since staff were removed at night. This is an imperative issue and I want the Minister to intervene to ensure we have the staff to ensure equality, access and a community service provided by our DART staff.

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