The Irish Rail ticket vending machines can handle smartcards, they just haven't been enabled yet
The senior smart pass up North is the way to go, the pass contains a smartcard and is presented to the driver/conductor/clerk who places it on the machine and the ticket is issued. They have 100% traceability on exactly who travelled where and you can't fake the pass
The current Irish system is a farce, no one knows how many passes there are, there is no way to verify a pass is actually valid and the number of variations on the pass is simply crazy, and in some cases you really wonder how people actually get the pass in the first place
Ideally it would work like this
1. Within Dublin commuter belt (Cork, Limerick etc) present pass to the reader/gate on bus/luas/train, so no more queuing but 100% traceability
2. For long distance present to booking office/driver etc and get a ticket issued
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