I have limited if any sympathy for people who could (including could but for circumstances entirely within their control) buy the ticket they wanted and didn't and got fined.
I have occasionally travelled legally without a ticket and not had the opportunity to purchase one because nobody was on the train or at the destination to collect the fare. My fiancée has boarded at Sandymount early on Sunday mornings when the station was closed and the TVMs (inexplicably) shuttered, and had no problems paying her fare at Connolly.
The problem I can see happening is if someone arrives at a station where there is only a TVM and not an attended office and wants to get a ticket which that machine doesn't supply (e.g. a Faircard return from Sandymount to Galway). Since there is some kind of ticket that the person could buy (e.g. a single to Connolly), it looks like they are disadvantaged and there is no legal right to buy a ticket en route or at the destination in that case.
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