Sir, – Recently while back home in Dublin, I was struck by the level of filth and neglect on every single bit of the railway line from Skerries into Dublin city centre, regardless of the locality being well-off or disadvantaged. It seems no-one in Dublin thinks there is anything wrong with throwing mattresses or building rubble over their garden fence on to the railway. Where does all the litter come from?
The filth and graffiti were on such a scale that I tried to see if I could go more than a few seconds without the undergrowth being full of rubbish. I couldn’t and I found it isn’t just a northside problem either because the line on the southside is just as shabby and dirty. No doubt outside Dublin the situation is even worse.
The clincher though is the condition of Connolly Station, where there is not one single piece of masonry or building that is not covered in spray graffiti. Every window in what used to be the maintenance depot just outside the station is smashed and left unfixed, while whole swathes of ground are allowed to remain overgrown with the remnants of previous building or track work just dumped along the tracks never to be taken away and left to rust and rot.
Connolly Station and Tara Street are like something you’d expect to find in eastern Europe that hasn’t seen a lick of paint since Soviet times.
Then it occurred to me to wonder if since 2011 any member of the public has ever seen an Irish politician, of any party, using public transport. Is there not a single person at senior level in the public sector or in CIÉ who uses public transport to get to work? If there is, does it never cross their mind to raise the condition of the stations and the filth and squalor along the rail line to the Minister or to officials?
Is it really expecting too much that someone could manage the railways and ensure growth is cut back, collect the track rubbish and interact with residents so they stop using the tracks as a dumping ground and to paint over the acres of graffiti?
If this Government can’t even manage basics like weeding and a bit of painting, what hope is there for it getting the bigger things right? – Yours, etc,
DESMOND FitzGERALD,
Canary Wharf,
London.