Behaviour of bus and train drivers is inexcusable
BUS Éireann and Irish Rail workers need to face serious consequences for what they are doing to the general public.
Firstly they announced their strike the same day as it started. This in itself was self-serving and disgraceful behaviour as it gave people nearly no time to make alternative arrangements. My first day of the strike was stressful and worrying like I am sure it was for thousands of others.
I have an annual ticket from Kildare which costs me well over €1,000. I have €45 a week deducted from my wages for this.
On Friday I had to pay for a private bus to take me to a train station half an hour away, then pay the return train tickets and also get a private bus home, which I was an hour waiting for. It will cost me an extra €15 per day on top of what is already coming out of my wages.
I was also supposed to travel home for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday. Nobody at Heuston would answer the phones for any type of enquiry from worried members of the public trying to find out if they could travel or not.
I had to go in there on my lunch hour only to be told the 10am, 11am and 12pm train to Limerick had been cancelled. This is the day before travel.
I realise I’m one of the lucky ones. People travelling for hospital appointments, funerals, flights, job interviews were all unable to get there.
And for what? So overpaid bus drivers can get what they want.
This should never be allowed to happen again. No institution should be able to hold the general public to ransom like they have and get away with it.
Something must be done to show these drivers this behaviour will not be tolerated ever again!
LISA CADOGAN, Clane, Co. Kildare.
A bright idea
SUNDAY marked the beginning of daylight-saving time. May I suggest this should have happened in early February?
Daylight saving aims to make maximum use of available daylight hours. This is a good thing.
We change the clocks for winter daylight saving at the end of October. This is approximately 54 days before the day of least light. Fiftyfour days after the day of least light is early February.
Why then do we wait until the end of March to change the clocks back, a full 95 days after the day of least light? This is the equivalent of changing the clock for winter time in mid-September.
If we did change the clock in early February, we would improve the mood of the nation as we would have bright evenings earlier. Also, it would lower heating and lighting costs.
If this is an international issue then I suggest world culture at large needs to see the light and thereby stop wasting our time.
JAMES FOLEY, Clondalkin, Dublin 22
In praise of McGuinness
WHILE neither a republican or a habitual funeral-goer, I had to make an exception in the case of Martin McGuinness. When the funeral was arranged for the Thursday, I knew I could not be there on the day. However, I travelled to Derry on the previous day and paid my respects to the man who enabled and nurtured the Good Friday Agreement.
My biggest regret is not being present to witness, and be part of, the tremendous and genuine céad míle fáilte that was extended to First Minister Arlene Foster for her attendance at the funeral.
She could have stayed away and ignored the event. However, she received her deserved reward for taking a chance and doing the right thing.
DENIS O’HIGGINS, Monaghan. …I HAVE just returned from the funeral of one of Sinn Féin’s greatest leaders of all time, a freedom fighter, deputy first minister, fly fisherman and a skilled negotiator.
He reached a place to ensure there would be no reversion back to the old days of violence to achieve our goals that was his main aim and he won the trust of all in opposition and even the friendship of Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson. It was great to see so many dignitaries at his funeral.
May this great man rest with Bobby Sands and the rest of our hunger strikers in the land of the Fenians. NOEL HARRINGTON, Kinsale Co. Cork.
Geldof’s claptrap
I THOUGHT the Boomtown Rats were full of sh*** ( to use their own terminology), back in the 1970s, and having read Tanya Sweeney’s interview with them (Mail, Friday), it appears nothing has changed.
Geldof’s only positive achievement in life was to p*** off the Brits and encourage more of them to vote for Brexit.
Well done, Sir Bob – how very anti-establishment!.
ERIC CONWAY, by email.
Brexit wounds for us
THE EU has said it will not impose penal conditions on Brexit. Good for it but unless we get concessions and special arrangements to continue our close relationship with the UK we will be punished with economic ruin. That’s the message the Taoiseach must take to Brussels. Securing our economic future would ensure his real, lasting and visible legacy. WILLIAM SHORTLAND, Blessington, Co. Wicklow.