Forgetting about Port Laoise and Charleville for the time being, there must be some flexibility to stimulate demand on a route like Cork-Limerick
In general trains trains to and from Dublin shed passengers when they are further from Dublin. There are a few exceptions like the 17:30 and 18:30 from Cork to Dublin, which can be busy with commuters to Mallow, but these are exceptions, not the rule.
Knowing that trains will operate well below capacity, there's no reason not to heavily discount them to get people onboard.
And between Cork and Limerick, there is significant travel. The traffic volumes on the N20 and the frequency of bus service show that. There's fairly significant business links and going back to students, there are a number of courses in each university that are not available at the other (e.g. no Dentistry at UL, no Mechanical Engineering at UCC).
At the moment, almost all public transport between the two cities is by either the Bus Eireann or Citylink bus services, but it doesn't necessarily have to be like that. The train can allow the route to be done in 1 hour 25 mins, comfortably faster than the 1 hour 45 offered by the two bus services.
Of course, timetable changes meaning a huge wait at Limerick Junction mean that there's only one train a day in each direction that comes close to that time, but that's not really the point here. The real point is that with spare capacity around, there's no reason Cork-Limerick should cost more than Cork-Dublin.
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