Frank Feighan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State. Unfortunately, I am very disappointed to have to say that incidents of anti-social behaviour appear to be on the increase on many of our train routes, including the Sligo to Dublin line. Irish Rail management has admitted as much and conceded to The Irish Timeslate last year that, "[B]oth employee reports and customer feedback do confirm that there has been an increase in the number of anti-social behaviour incidents over the past 18 months". According to figures recently obtained by the Longford Leaderunder a freedom of information request, 86 alleged incidents of anti-social behaviour occurred on the Sligo to Dublin Connolly network over the past two years, an average of two incidents a week on the line. That is unacceptable by any measure. Anyone who, like me, uses that train regularly has witnessed some form of anti-social behaviour.

As we know, anti-social behaviour can take many forms. It can include verbal abuse, intimidation, drunkenness, vandalism, drug use and assaults. Yesterday, I listened to an interview with a Sligo solicitor on Ocean FM who expressed safety concerns for passengers on the Sligo to Dublin route. Having witnessed a number of incidents in recent years, the solicitor noted that the most recent involved an altercation between a teenager and two drunken men on the train which led to gardaí boarding the train. I read a newspaper report yesterday that stated that Irish Rail received several complaints of harassment on the Dublin to Westport line. This is clearly unacceptable.

It is an intolerable situation and it begs the question as to what exactly Irish Rail is doing to combat this thuggish behaviour, whether it is on the Sligo line or any other network. We simply cannot have a situation whereby decent, law-abiding people are paying good money for rail fares only to be terrorised when they get on board. I join in the calls for additional security to deal with the scourge of disruptive passengers.

As the Minister of State knows, many proposals have been floated, including the introduction of security personnel, as seen on the Luas, and specialised Garda units. There have even been calls for a dedicated transport police unit to be put in place.

I understand that Irish Rail has plans to introduce a text alert system along with the installation of CCTV in all carriages. We have to protect all of our rail passengers from this appalling behaviour. I look forward to the Minister of State outlining what Irish Rail is doing and what other measures it could put in place to deal with this widespread problem.