Coolmine - south bound ticket machines and why to never board without a ticket

[Coolmine99]

As anyone using the recently installed south bound ticket machines at Coolmine probably knows, these are of mixed reliability (i.e. either not working, or accepting laser / C Card only). I tried to use these on Monday morning, and ended up boarding the train without a ticket hoping to pay in Peasrse as the machines appeared to have frozen and were 100% not working. This option was also chosen by several other commuters in the queue. This was reasonable course of action given the torrential rain, and the fact that the barriers were down. Wrong move - as I came foul of a rather rude offical at Pearse at the otehr end. A couple of things:

I know I was in breach of the famous "bye-laws" (which, incidentally are not to be found on Irish Rails website). However, you would expect some flexibility in this case. I produced a recently expired annual card (my second consecutive one) and last week's weekly ticket, as well as explaining the situation at Coolmine that morning. Not exactly the modus operandi of a serial fare evader.

The attitude of the guy at Peasrse was nothing short of a disgrace. He firslty said he would ring the station to check this out, but said I needed to give my name and address first. He wouldn't explain why he needed this - despite my repeated requests for such personal information - so I might have been a bit (ahem) forgetful exactly where I lived exaclty, knowing where this was going. Low and behold, after I gave my details, he proceeded to tell me a fine will be in the post. He refused to ring the station as he had promised, and proceeded to walk off from my protenstations - ognoring me as if I wasn't there. Great way of treating 'customers'.

To be honest, the combindation of the torrential rain, over crowded trains that apear to run on random time table (never mind the complete lack of information when trains run late / don't show up, missing or wrong information on th train panels, etc), rude and ignorant IR staff, some of whom have personal hygiene issues, is making a 1.5 hour commute by car from Coolmine to town starting to look attractive.....