Rail services set to deteriorate further if dispute not settled before holidays end

Disruption, overcrowding and delays on commuter rail links to the capital which are already severe on some routes are expected to worsen once the peak holiday season has ended.

Last week commuters from Cos Kildare, Meath and Louth were turning to car-pooling and buses as the overcrowding, particularly the Drogheda suburban service, raised safety concerns.

Iarnr≤d ╔ireann says the worst hit area is Co Kildare, where the Arrow commuter service has been badly affected by the rail dispute. During July the level of Arrow service was just under 40 per cent, with 380 trains running in place of the planned 952. According to the company the difficulty is exacerbated by an inability to predict beyond a daily basis the number of Arrow trains which will run.

The poor level of service has resulted in commuters basing their schedules on some of the more reliable mainline services, such as the Galway, Cork and Limerick trains. Iarnr≤d ╔ireann says the Kildare suburban service has been worst hit because it is served by the Inchicore depot where large number of drivers are members of the Irish Locomotive Drivers' Association.

The next worst-affected commuter link is the Drogheda suburban line where the company was adding additional stops to the mainline Dundalk and Belfast services, in order to assist commuters. However, overcrowding is again a problem, giving rise to an instance where a young woman fainted last week and had to be held upright until the train stopped at the next station as there was insufficient room for her to lie down.

The suburban service to Maynooth, Co Kildare, which also serves Enfield in Co Meath, has been running normally, aided by the Sligo service which also uses the route.

The least-affected county appears to be Co Wicklow where both the Arklow suburban and Rosslare services are running at 100 per cent, according to the rail company. The implementation of a full, or even an expanded, DART service from Greystones has been delayed yet again, but this is not connected to the current dispute. Two DART trains from Dublin were cancelled on Friday due to secondary picketing, but in general the DART has been running at 100 per cent of service.

The Department of Public Enterprise is also concerned about the passenger numbers on the worst-affected routes. The Department's inspector of railways has asked Iarnr≤d ╔ireann to consider the safety aspect of both the passenger trains and the ammonia trains serving the IFI plant in Arklow.

According to a Department spokesman the inspector has been assured that "nobody is exposed to unacceptable risk". The spokesman also said that Iarnr≤d ╔ireann was keeping the safety situation under review.

Both the Department and Iarnr≤d ╔ireann have warned that the situation is likely to get much worse if the dispute is not settled by the time the schools reopen in the first week of September.