Cross-border annual tickets

[Padna]

I live in Dundalk and work in Belfast. For the past four years I have bought an annual Irish Rail point-to-point ticket valid for travel between Dundalk and Belfast, and it has worked well for me. I pay cash upfront for the ticket as the Taxsaver scheme doesn't apply to those working in Northern Ireland. Neither is it an option to buy an annual ticket from Translink/NIR - they only sell annual tickets for journeys within NI, although they do sell monthly and weekly tickets for cross-border journeys.

I have heard that these annual Irish Rail tickets have now been replaced by personalised Leap cards and that the stations between which the tickets is valid will no longer be printed on the card. I am wondering how Translink staff are meant to know if such Leap cards are valid or are their card readers compatible with Leap cards?

It should be noted that I don't always travel on the Enterprise trains; because the first northbound Enterprise each morning only arrives in Belfast at 09.45, I sometimes drive to Newry to catch an earler train from there. This in turn gives me the option of getting off in another station such as Great Victoria Street and returning to Newry on a loal Translink service in the evening. I have also been able to use my Irish Rail ticket for travel on these non-Enterprise services for the past four years, but am now unsure if I will be able to do that in future.

Any thoughts?