Letters to the Editor: New Ireland is crawling along on inefficient public transport
Commuters simply want a consistent, comfortable, and trustworthy train service.
It’s 09.07am on a miserable May day and faces are growing weary on the platform of Donabate train station as they wait for the 09.02am service.
Anxious students can be heard venting over the phone on whether or not they’ll make it to their exams on time — if at all; emails from tired northern-suburb commuter employees are frantically written in response to demanding bosses; and European tourists, to little productivity and to much miscomprehension of the situation, attempt to seek out information from the muffled announcement on the speakers outside.
Comically, the staff member behind the window shouts “can yous hear that?” to which he receives a collective, resolute “No”.
On the bright side of this dull, drizzly morning, a line of text on the real-time sign outside proudly reads: “No reports of lifts out of order”.
You’d think that spending circa €500,000 for a three-bedroom home (in a town bound up in overdevelopment and poor infrastructure) would secure these people access to a rather fundamental pillar of daily routine in a country ranked second-richest in Europe: Adequate and reliable public transportation.
On the contrary, however, most days they don’t even get a seat on their 25-minute journey (which in reality with unfailing delays is more like 40 minutes) daily before a long day of work. On some days, getting home is not much better.
These daily experiences are largely a confirmation amongst a plethora of others that demonstrate why Greenpeace’s recent survey ranked Dublin’s transportation system the worst in Europe.
Forty minutes later, standing on the worn-out platform, and a train arrives at last; the downside being that it’s too full to even step into. All of this is a mere precursor to my journey to UCD, where my connecting bus sits still in traffic at College Green for 15 minutes before crawling to Baggot St in another 10.
I’m not asking for the efficiency of my former 9e Paris metro transport back (I got enough bitter middle-aged rural resentment in comments following a piece on returning to Ireland and reverse culture shock from September 2022 for even broaching this).
I am not asking for a tube to arrive every 100 seconds, as an Irish friend who just relocated to London pointed out. I’m simply asking for a consistent, comfortable, and trustworthy service to get to my upcoming exams in the RDS.
But what would a deluded Gen-Z know? I’m just one of the seven in 10 young Irish people aged 18 to 24 who are considering moving abroad, based on a 2022 survey from the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI).
Can you really blame Irish young people for daring to opt for better basic standards? I can’t help but laugh when I see an advertisement for an Irish Rail graduate programme on my LinkedIn as I sit on the delayed commuter service to college.
Why should we give back or help clean up a mess that was made before our time? Anyways, there’s simply one thing left to do for this whingeing Gen-Z. Buy an overpriced €6 oat flat white out of spite for the current economic climate (and transport system too).
I should know better, after 22 years of living here, than to be surprised — as David McWilliams pointed out in a recent article titled ‘Although wealthy, Ireland feels completely different from most other wealthy countries’ (March 25): “In our commuting life, the daily grind from home to work is a hassle, homes are jerry-built, hugely expensive and second-rate, bottlenecks and holdups characterise much of our regular experience. Working Ireland is multilingual, multitalented, and multicultural. This train, on the other hand, is old Ireland, spluttering fitfully on ancient tracks, belching out black fumes.”
Other modes of Irish transport don’t get off the not-cutting it hook either. Let’s not forget in 2022, the National Transport Authority having to fine private bus operator Go-Ahead more than €70,000 for incompetence and poor services. Is this really the conduct of a country housing some of the world’s richest corporations?
Iarnród Éireann and Transport for Ireland — when will it start cutting it? If not soon, I believe many Irish youths will take the leap and head to one of their European counterparts who are indeed cutting it, if not killing it.
In Jack Power’s review of — ‘Will this venerable old craft still stand the test of time?’ ( , Weekend, April 29) — he notes that a custom-made mechanical watch is expensive enough to strain the super-rich from our current sea of ordinary billionaires.
Even factory-made mechanical watches constitute a young stockbroker’s aspirations, and I wonder why.
In 1965 I worked in a big building in Cleveland, housing 60 watchmakers. Inoperative watches from neighbourhood jewellery stores came in by the bucketful. We’d repair, clean, and time them and wonder how the world would be when all watches were electronic, for every watch was mechanical then.
Those who remember those days were shocked to suddenly see mechanical watches advertised as aspirational fashion accessories, for the accuracy and reliability of a plastic electronic timepiece far exceeds that of the best mechanical watch.
As someone who played football and hurling at adult level since I was 16 until I was 45, I am disgusted that our games are now being decided on penalties, especially when I see no need.
My God, what an utter shambles to decide the proud and ancient Ulster final on the travesty that is penalties. This was a black mark on an enthralling contest that really came to life in extra time and Armagh must think they are jinxed after losing out to Galway last year in similar hideous fashion.
This matter was brought up by Michael McMahon at the Donegal County Convention last year and he was told that it would be looked into. Clearly it wasn’t.
There is no earthly reason why this most prestigious final could not have gone to a replay and please don’t give me the crappy answer that there is no time. There is always time when there is a will and for Jesus sake we are only in the middle of May.
The Ulster Championship final has been totally devalued and disrespected. It is unjust, unfair, and totally unacceptable. But why aren’t the ordinary GAA followers rebelling against this injustice?
Why are counties meekly accepting this abomination... to quote the great ex-Irish rugby captain Ciaran Fitzgerald, “Where is your f.....g pride” and I would add, where is your self-respect?
The burning of a makeshift refugee camp in Dublin represents a new low in the insidious growth of racism in Ireland. But it’s unfortunately a logical follow-on from the gradual ratcheting-up of tensions by far-right and xenophobic groups that have sought to exploit the refugee crisis for their own political ends.
The daily non-stop attempts to foment suspicion and hatred of “others” entering our country to “dilute our culture and ethnicity” were bound to result in such a sinister act of violence against the most vulnerable in our midst.
In recent months the racist agitators have at times succeeded in re-packaging their hatred and prejudice to make them look more reasonable and maybe even “mainstream” in their ideological stance and political manoeuverings.
But, sadly, no matter how clever their periodic PR makeovers appear, they remain people who judge their fellow human beings by the colour of their skin or their countries of origin.
They need to be called out whenever and wherever they seek to peddle their toxic ideology and their wilful distortion of history, as for example when they refer to the arrival of migrants on our shores as a “conquest” like the one that resulted in our colonisation, or when they preach about a “new plantation”.
Past conquerors, be they Vikings, Normans, or Anglo-Saxons, came to plunder and enslave. Not so these people who are victims of tyranny or severely life-threatening situations, as distinct from conquerors or enemies. There’s a world of difference between the plantations of the past and those simply asking to be let live in peace, out of harm’s way.
There are many shades of political opinion in Ireland, as reflected in the eclectic line-up of parties and independents that contest local and national elections. But all of them need to decisively reject racism and actions such as the torching of the migrant camp.
The far right is far from right in its twisted vision of the kind of country most of us want to live in. Sure, they wrap themselves in the tricolour, but that flag stands for freedom, justice, and equality — not racism, organised bullying, and the deliberate targeting of the weakest in our society.
Let’s give the red card to racism, and take our flag back from the xenophobes.
An invitation to a coronation is a great honour, so a modicum of respect is required.
President Higgins’ presence at the coronation of Britain's King Charles was sufficient representation for Ireland.
You can’t polish educated ignorance.
