[18-3-2008] 18:18 connolly longford [from bray]

[chuggachuggachoochoo]

Well fair play to the drivers for standing up for their rights to days off.

I hope that more staff can be hired & trained up so that the situation of drivers not getting their 2 days off out of 7 doesnt happen again on a regular basis.

Do IR have the budget for hiring more drivers I wonder?

[zag]

It seems crazy that the setup is continuing without some official statement from IE and/or the drivers explaining what the 'plan' is. By plan I mean something that can be relied upon to deliver the scheduled services with as near to 100% reliability as can be expected.

If I understand it correctly, IE have scheduled more trains (good) but without providing for an increase in the number of drivers (bad). The shortfall is expected/hoped by IE to be made up by some drivers working their rostered days off. This is potentially a viable very-short-term solution which might work if the drivers are willing to do it. But they're not willing to do it and I don't blame them. It will also involve the drivers getting increased compensation in terms of further days off or overtime payments.

In the medium term IE need to get it into gear and recruit more drivers. Or else reduce the timetabled trains to a sustainable level.

They are doing nobody any favours by saying "look at our shiney new timetable, more trains, better, faster, etc . . ." and then not being able to deliver on the promise.

I don't take intercity trains very often, but if I turned up for the last train to somewhere and found out they had cancelled it because there was no driver available (and they didn't reasonably expect their to be a driver available) I would be very, very, very annoyed with them. It's very poor customer service to schedule these trains without adequate resources to back the schedule up.

z

[Mark Gleeson]

Obviously its not safe for drivers to work every day of the week, rest days are essential. Given the proposed increases in services between now and 2010 this problem will continue. Irish Rail could hire more full time drivers, but they don't really want to since they have a crazy solution in mind

There is a media blackout in force at the request of the LRC

Interesting to note Irish Rail don't pay overtime just the normal hourly rate

You are entitled to a honest explanation of why the train was cancelled which you are not getting which is a breach of the Irish Rail code of ethics

Failure to provide the timetable leaves Irish Rail in breech of there service level agreement, which sadly is not enforcable