Ned O'Sullivan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would be grateful to the Leader if he raised with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the absence of lifts in many rural railway stations. I refer to the manner in which passengers must cross from one platform to the other. In Charleville, the station with which I am most familiar, passengers getting off the Dublin-Cork train must cross the railway tracks in order to leave the station. The only method available to them is the old true and tried metal bridge, but this is very inconvenient, particularly for elderly people carrying suitcases. There is provision to place a platform across the tracks after the train departs so that invalided persons can cross but it is unreasonable that ordinary passengers of a certain age have to cross steep metal bridges in order to exit railway stations.