KEITH CARGILL,
Madam, - Many years ago we had a Fianna Fáil Minister of Transport called Todd Andrews acclaimed for his dismemberment of much of the Irish railway network. This action, while it may immediately have saved money, was precipitate if any long-term strategic planning was to happen.
Mr Andrews was the forerunner of Dr Beeching, who similarly managed to savage much of the railway network in the UK in the name of economy.
Fast-forward to the 1980s when a very convenient service for passengers from Dun Laoghaire pier to Connolly station for 50p a head was discontinued to make way for the DART, an electrified service to run, hopefully, from Greystones to Lusk and Howth. The concept was good but the execution was poor:
1. It was not compatible with any other of the CIE rolling stock.
2. The DARTs were to be integrated units, unable to be extended by the addition of other carriages.
3. The platforms were shortened, chiefly I believe because management thought the drivers would not stop at the right place.
Again the UK experience was ignored; in the 1960s British Rail had introduced the 125, an excellent service that also suffered from being an integrated unit that could not be extended when required.
Now in 2003 we are again the beneficiaries of the successive Fianna Fáil Transport Ministers. Fourteen years after the DART was introduced we were rewarded with more DARTs. To counterbalance this improvement Mary O'Rourke allows CIE to sell off too much of its Spencer Dock site, thus disabling freight services to Sligo, Galway and Waterford and forcing more traffic onto our already crowded roads.
Seamus Brennan continues this incompetent behaviour; the Athenry crossover is taken up, with the promise to reinstate if required. He then compounds this by deciding to flog off CIE to the private sector. Brilliant!
A Real "Thatcherite" stroke. Deny the public transport system funds until people get really fed up, and then sell it cheaply to your friends.
Meanwhile, morale among CIE staff disappears.
"Those the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad". - Yours, etc.,
KEITH CARGILL, Drinagh, Ennistymon, Co Clare.