[Thomas J Stamp]

I was able to drive, non stop, from Templemore to Malahide in 1 hour 45 mins last week. Even with my Carbon Jackboot of a Car it was cheaper than the train. Normally, I would have got Train, Luas, Dart. So there was two passenger numbers down on each.

Actually, I did it twice, so they were down four each.

I've been saying here for years that once the new motorway system is up and running you will see the shoddiness of the current rail system exposed for what it is. I know plenty of people who have car spaces going with their jobs but dont use them because of the M50. Not the innner city congestion, which is taken for granted, but the added headache of getting into it. When the final freeflow bits are in place at newlands and also in Lucan you will see journey times come down again.

No amount of KR(a)P will hide that fact. Why bother getting paying for parking at your station, get a train to the middle of nowhere only to find a tram already packed waiting for you?

Oddly enough, if Luas opens up a few more P&R sites, and ditto metro (lol) you could very well see a total collapse in IE numbers in the Kildare/Maynooth corridoors.

Again, as we have pointed out before, less customers does not mean one job loss in IE. The same trains will run, at the same times, despite being empty or full to the brim. Customers are not relevent.