Sir, - Congratulations are due to Mrs Mary O'Rourke for her succesful intervention in the Bus Eireann dispute. I'm sure that Minister will be interested to learn that for those travelling from Wicklow Town to Dublin last Saturday afternoon, the threatened strike had effectively begun. Locals and Dubliners alike were left stranded by a combination of poor stop-sign information and driver obstinacy, as the 13.50 bus tore off leaving 90 per cent of its potential passengers waiting at what we had been informed was the correct stop. What made us believe we were at the right place? Well, maybe the facts that it was the only stop outside the Grand Hotel (the listed location for the stop) to display the timetable, and also happened to be the stop which one of my fellow would-be passengers had been told by a Bus Eireann driver to wait at!
On contacting with Bus Eireann headquarters, I was told that nothing could be done as no radio contact with the driver is maintained, but not to worry as there was another bus to Dublin at 14.47. That bus duly arrived at the right stop and on time - only for the driver to inform us that the bus went to Bray and no further! As it was to be over an hour before the actual Dublin-bound bus was due, , everybody reluctantly boarded the Bray bus. In keeping with the excellent integrated nature of CIE's various transport systems, the bus dropped us on Main Street, a good half-kilometre from Bray Dart Station. Yes indeed, congratulations to Mrs O'Rourke, but I hope she realises that her task in public transport is certainly one of some magnitude, and that it has barely begun. - Yours, etc.
IVAN MORRIN,
Trinity College, Dublin 2.