The reckless rail unions pushing for these strikes are like turkeys voting for Christmas

MUCH as I’d like to bang on at length about how great the Steely Dan concert was, I’ll spare you that. Let’s just say it beat my usual Saturday night routine of sitting in front of the telly and desperately trying not to lose the will to live.

The fact that I only had a ten-minute walk home at the end of it all was a welcome bonus, of course.

Unlike thousands of other fans streaming out of The Venue Formerly Known As The Point Depot (I’m reluctant to give free advertising to sponsors, thank you very much), I didn’t have to run for the bus or try to flag down a cab.

All I had to do was cross the East Link Bridge on foot and, seconds later, I was within spitting distance of a handful of pubs, a chip shop and a Chinese takeaway.

Best of all, my own front door was almost visible in the distance.

None of this is intended as a smug homily to all things metropolitan. Trust me, I am only too aware of the downsides of city life and the sacrifices it involves.

Getting used to living quarters that are only marginally bigger than a typical doll’s house is one of them. Meanwhile, I have long since resigned myself to the likelihood of never having a garden.

But the downsides are more than outweighed by the joys of not having to rely on public transport. When I was growing up in the Seventies and Eighties, I lived in a part of suburban Dublin that had a very poor bus service.

Disgruntled

Buses would frequently arrive an hour or more behind schedule. Of course, I hardly need add that sometimes they simply didn’t arrive at all.

So I made a decision many years ago that I wasn’t going to allow my life to be dictated by the inconsistencies of the CIÉ timetable. Which, to cut a long story short, is why I have spent the last quarter of a century or so living within walking distance of both the city centre and the various places I’ve worked.

Even as a non-driver, I hardly ever need to use public transport. I genuinely cannot remember when I was last on a mainline train or regional bus service. As for the Dart and Luas, I might use them a handful of times a year. Very occasionally I’ll jump on a bus if I’m running late or it is raining.

But I am one of the lucky few, of course. Vast numbers of people rely on the public transport network to get them to wherpany ever they need to be on a daily basis. Yet for the umpteenth time in recent years, we are set to see a new wave of stoppages by disgruntled transport staff. This time it is the turn of the train drivers, who are beginning a series of five one-day strikes starting this Wednesday.

Around 155,000 Dart commuter and InterCity passengers a day will be affected by the dispute.

It is bad enough that one of the days in question is November 14 when the Republic of Ireland’s World Cup play-off takes place at The Stadium Formerly Known As Lansdowne Road. Even more provocatively they are also planning to walk off the job on December 8, the day when people from all four corners of the country descend on the capital to do their Christmas shopping.

Worst of all, there is also the threat of a three-day stoppage starting on December 21. A senior union source told the Irish Daily Mail last week: ‘If the dispute goes on towards the fifth day then the unions will come under pressure from its membership to significantly ramp up the dispute, and that could be reflected in stoppages of a longer duration, and will undoubtedly involve disruption to Christmas travel.’

Gratitude

Reading those words, it is almost possible to smell the contempt for the paying public. These are the same passengers, of course, without whom none of these drivers would have a job in the first place. Still, I don’t suppose we should be in the least bit surprised at the lack of gratitude.

Even from the drivers’ perspective, though, going on strike seems like madness when the state of Irish Rail’s finances is factored into the equation. The com- has accumulated debts of €160million and there have previously been warnings of it teetering ‘on the brink of insolvency’.

Meanwhile, the five days of stoppages will cost up to an estimated €4.6million. Irish Rail boss David Franks warned staff in recent days: ‘You will lose income, Iarnród Éireann will lose revenue, and any losses reduce our ability further to fund an increase in earnings.’

Come to think of it, perhaps the timing of the threatened stoppages makes sense in a perverse kind of way. We’re talking about turkeys voting for Christmas here.

The reality is that the powers-that-be should have nipped all of this in the bud long ago. As soon as the drivers on Dublin Bus and the Luas got their pay rises, it was inevitable that their colleagues on the trains would want of a slice of the action.

If management had played hardball in those previous disputes, we wouldn’t find ourselves in this situation now. The problem isn’t just hardline union leaders; it is also lily-livered executives who always seem to end up blinking first. Meanwhile, Transport Minister Shane Ross continues to do his Pontius Pilate act.

Excessive

Granted, the 3.75% increase being demanded by the train drivers doesn’t sound particularly excessive. But let’s not forget that we are talking about a company where the finances are in rag order.

It can’t continue, of course. But the plain fact of the matter it is that union bosses will continue to try it on with State-funded organisations until someone faces them down.

Not for the first time, I’ll point to the experiences elsewhere. Those of us who are around long enough remember how thousands of Fleet Street printers lost their very well-paid jobs in the Eighties largely because of the intransigence of their union leaders.

At the start of that decade, Ronald Reagan sacked more than 11,000 air traffic controllers – whose union had been one of the few to support his bid for the presidency – just two days after they went on strike for better pay.

No-one wants to see something similar happening here.

But the more union leaders continue to push their luck, the more it starts to look inevitable.

No doubt the union leaders think they’ve pulled off a masterstroke by threatening to cancel Christmas. But they won’t look so clever if their members end up being turfed out on their collective ear.