Irish Rail defends unannounced new fares structure

The days of €20 return train fares between Cork and Dublin are gone.

Irish Rail has almost doubled its cheapest inter-city online fares and has also increased its standard charges, bringing the return fare from Dublin to Cork or Tralee to just two cent shy of €86, if transaction and credit card fees of up to €6 are included.

However, a greater number of fares for less than half that price will be available to book within three days of travel. Until now, passengers hoping to avail of €20 return fares had to book three weeks in advance and the number of cheap fares available was extremely limited.

The unannounced changes — which came into effect this week — will see a far greater number of cut-price fares available to book online. Online fares from Cork and Tralee will be €19.99 each way regardless of travel time, if booked online up to three days in advance of travelling.

A spokesman for Irish Rail yesterday defended the new fares structure, saying it would benefit more train travellers and offer better value overall.

“This will give far more people the chance of making use of cheaper fares,” said Andrew Roche, the company’s business development manager. “Up to now, there were only a few selected times that cheaper fares applied to and that did not suit everyone. From now on, discounted online fares will apply to all travel times once they are booked up to three days in advance. That means that far more people will benefit.”

One odd aspect of the new fare structure, however, is that some relatively short inter-city journeys will cost far more than others that take longer. Passengers on the Tralee-Cork-Dublin line will, for instance, pay relatively more than those on the Galway to Dublin or Waterford to Dublin lines.

The online fare from Waterford to Dublin-Heuston is now €9.99 each way, a journey that can take up to three-and-a-half hours. At the same time, the fare from Charleville to Dublin, which takes as little as two hours and two minutes, now costs more than double that figure, at €19.99 each way.

Similarly, fares from Limerick or Galway to Dublin, at €14.99, are far better value — mile for mile — than the fare from Thurles.

While the Galway journey takes almost three hours and at least two hours 15 minutes, the journey from Thurles is one hour less than that at 74 minutes, yet the fare is the same.

Passengers should also be aware they may be “fined” on board trains if they get on a train earlier than the one they have booked, even if the same fare applies.

One angry passenger complained to the Irish Examiner that, having booked an online fare of €19.99 from Dublin to Cork for a 3pm train journey last week, she had to pay a surcharge after getting on the 2pm train instead. “I managed to get to the station early, so I got on the earlier train, which was not full.

“The online fare for the 2pm train was exactly the same, yet I had to pay an extra €18 which I think is grossly unfair. In fact, it could have been worse as I was told by the inspector that I could have been ‘fined’ €100 for getting on the early train.”