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Originally Posted by thomasjstamp
there used to be bus services in dublin untill 1980 on christmas day. My uncle was a conductor in Ringsend and he told me they ran untill 6pm but I dont remeber what sort of service it was, a sunday or skeleton. He also said the pay was huge, about 4 days worth for doing it. The demand was nil, and that was why they stopped it. I think the BAC spokesman said before christmas that they have never had a single request for it and never recived a complaint about it either from passangers.
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That's 25 years ago! Ireland has many new citizens since then, many of whom aren't even christian, let alone catholic. I know my employer was open for business on xmas day, as was Intel and HP, probably plenty more multinationals (especially the ones with a financial year ending with the calendar year!) and everyone who was working had to get taxis in at my employer's expense. If the drink laws are ever changed to allow pubs to open on xmas day (and they should be because it's totally discriminatory to close pubs when many of us have no belief in xmas) then there will be a huge increase in demand. I wonder will the CIE group respond then?
A lack of public transport actually hits some of the lowest paid irish and immigrant workers hardest. People on good salaries rarely have to work xmas day, it's cleaners, porters, hotel staff etc. who need to get to work on xmas day but they can't. Many of the most vulnerable migrant workers will have to pay for taxis (or walk miles) themselves.