Ticket Question - Annual Bus and Rail

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I have two questions about my new annual Bus and Rail Ticket.

Is this going to become a Smart card in the future, if so when?

When I transfer from bus to train I get message "ticket already validated" and cannot get throught the gates at the station. Does anybody know how long you need to wait before it will work in the train stations after using a bus and also whom I can contact in Irish Rail to have this corrected? It can be very frustrating waiting around fro somebody to open the gates manually.