Iarnród Éireann’s shame over awful ordeal of special needs children
LAUGH all you like about British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s efforts to highlight overcrowding on trains, but we could do with a similar stunt over here.
Where do we start? Iarnród Éireann’s shambolic service, the lack of station staff, the filth of the bathrooms, not to mention the organisation’s abject failure to enforce the pre-booked seating facility – it creates avoidable tension between those who refuse to budge from their spot and those who took the trouble to book in advance, and whose names are over the seats.
These unfortunate features of intercity travel came to a head recently when a large group of special needs children from Mayo, accompanied by their carers, took a trip to Dublin Zoo for their annual treat.
The organiser made the arrangements in May, pre-booked seats and explained the special circumstances.
Okay, Jim’ll Fix It might be a bad memory today but Iarnród Éireann certainly seems to have put a vast distance between itself and the idea of giving sick, disabled or disadvantaged kids a day to remember. Suffice to say there was no bunting to greet the children, some of whom were in wheelchairs, no party bags to make their journey extra special.
There was not even a notice directing them to their carriage or even a ramp for the wheelchairs. There was no staff free to even help out.
The pre-booked seats were already occupied and the end result was that the group was split up between carriages.
Wheelchairs were pressed in beside the toilets on the packed train, two little children with autism sat on top of tables, while some of the children had to stand for the entire journey.
Most of them were distressed from the chaos and some were screaming.
It sounds an utter nightmare from the start to the finish.
While Iarnród Éireann has apologised and explained the seat mix-up, thanks to a lack of staff and customer care it turned a potentially magical day into an unmitigated disaster. ➤➤OLYMPIAN Sonia O’Sullivan, pictured, who sits on the board of the Olympic Council of Ireland has not much to say about the ticketing scandal other than it being ‘sensationalised’ by the media and her not having much interest in administration. While it’s perfectly understandable that a star athlete like Sonia has no truck with bureaucracy, it is slightly puzzling why, if that is the case, she is such a long-serving board member.