Emer Currie (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I raise the unmitigated disaster that has been the change in Irish Rail timetables for Dublin. There has been a lot of focus on the northern routes and not so much on the western routes. We on those routes have been very affected. Yesterday, I put up a post on social media stating that I wanted to raise the issue in the Seanad. I got 93 responses in 24 hours. We know that if one gets five responses or five emails on an issue, it is big. I received 93 responses in 24 hours.

The issue is affecting our train stations, including those at Hansfield, Clonsilla, Coolmine, Castleknock, Ashtown and Pelletstown. What seems to be happening is that trains, both inbound and outbound, are now terminating in Connolly Station. Those trains are not going through to Pearse Station. There are delays of eight to ten minutes. There is overcrowding. One of the people who got in contact with me described the timetable for Docklands Station as a work of fiction. The information on the displays is not accurate. People are waiting and if the correct information is not displayed, they can miss connections. The arrangements around the platforms in Connolly Station appear chaotic. People are not being asked to change onto a train at the nearest platform but are instead being sent all over the place. There are bottlenecks in the station. There are trains of three or four carriages at peak times, which is obviously contributing to the overcrowding. I ask the Leader to write to the Joint Committee on Transport to echo the calls for representatives of Irish Rail to come before the committee to go through these issues and to find a solution. The timetables were changed on 26 August. There were attempts to improve the situation on 16 September but it has not improved. The question is: if it is not broken, why fix it?