Irish Rail and the financial crisis

[Mark Gleeson]

Its very easy sit on the fence from afar and predict

There will be no fare increases as these are state controlled, a huge block of savings is about to hit as the redundancy payments are once off. Closing Waterford Rosslare save over 1 million per annum. The works at Limerick Junction will save over 500k in a year. The new social services card will eliminate fraud on social welfare travel, I've been told the kind of savings expected and they are large multi million. Given the massive infrastructure spend over the last 10 years running costs are low

The 51 ICR coaches are committed

I've seen the plan b which highlights 3 routes to chop

We have been invited to discuss a number of issues with Irish Rail which are focused on revenue generation and not cut backs.