Train strike - A display of contempt for customers

YESTERDAY’S disruption of rail services was an insult to the Irish people and a display of contempt for the travelling public without whom the management or staff of Iarnród Éireann would not have a job.

While the company blames the drivers, and the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) blames management, there should be no confusion about who was responsible. The blame rests squarely on both sides for the contemptible attitude that they have shown towards their customers.

A company spokesman admitted that management had anticipated that there might be a problem, but they did not have the courtesy to warn the public.

People turned up at rail stations to learn, without any prior warning, that trains — on which they planned to travel to work to conduct their own vital business or to get already-delayed medical treatment — were not running.

The issue was supposed to revolve around the introduction of Mark IV trains but that was resolved at the Labour Court in January. The dispute has little to do with the new trains.

A spokesman for drivers in Cork contended that there was an issue about the level of training that drivers have received to run those trains, but drivers elsewhere in the country are satisfied with their level of training, with the result that this claim would seem to be particularly spurious.

It is not the first time that drivers have shown such contempt. They are very well paid, and if they do not want to work, it should be easy to find people who would be eager and capable of doing the job. Drivers must not be allowed to hold the travelling public hostage to unjustifiable claims.

Other issues — such as pay claims for coaching trainee drivers and for agreeing to the more stringent monitoring of driving standards — have nothing to do with the present controversy and should not be allowed to cloud the issue.

Iarnród Éireann has been subsidised handsomely by the public, in the form of huge Government investment for new improved trains. Yet this is the way that the company and staff repay that generosity. It is very difficult to find words to express adequately the degree of revulsion at the behaviour of the company as a whole.

Yesterday’s behaviour was a most arrogant display of indifference towards the travelling public, and insolence towards the Government, which has subsidised the company and staff so handsomely. It was also, ultimately, a display of contempt for the public, which has been footing the bill.

The trains should be running without further delay, and stringent measures should be put in place to ensure that such precipitate action by either or both sides should never be allowed to happen again.