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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.
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and the population of Dublin is about 800,000 more than back then and most of these people live in West Dublin and are not going to go to O'Connell Street on Christmas Day anyway. It there were actually orbital bus routes and a DART service on Christmas day, people would use it. Immigrants alone would probably justify it.
I don't think thomasjstamp was claiming that 1980's Christmas Day CIE data is how we should measure demand for Christmas Day services in 2006, but rather this is how CIE make decisions when planning public transport services in 2006 and beyond (coupled with how it suits the lifestyles of the CIE unions).
The culture of CIE has yet to make it to 1979, yet alone 1980. If we could get them to 1980 that would move them about 6 years culturally forward from where they currently are now.
Mark my words. When the Stephen's Green Metro/Luas/DART station opens in 2015, that unles the likes of P11 and others can kick up a storm, the Metro and Luas parts will be buzzing with passengers over the Christmas holidays and the CIE Interconnector Station will be closed because of "no demand".
You, I and everybody else knows this is going to happen and for me this must question the wisdom of giving Irish Rail the money to build an underground rail tunnel, when they do not have the intelligence, nor desire to use it to provide an
underground rail SERVICE.
I think any financial commitment for capital investment the Government gives to CIE/IE from this point forward should be based on how they are going to use it in terms of integration with Bus, Luas and Metro and will it operate according to 21st demands and not the CIE union's and Irish Rail management's 1974 mindset.
A tunnel between Spencer Dock and Hueston is pointless if the CIE traditional hours of operational service is the end result of this investment.