Wicklow Sinn Féin candidate in the local elections for Wicklow East, Anthony Hill has slammed the government and the Green Party Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan for its failure to address urgent need for additional rail services to Wicklow Town.
By the time the train arrives in Wicklow Town from Rosslare, having several stops on the way through, by the time it arrives in Wicklow hundreds of workers are left scrambling for places during early morning midweek rush to get the train to Dublin.
Anthony Hill said:
“If the Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan took upon themselves to go down to Wicklow Town Train Station at 7.30am on a working day I think he would be in for a shock.
What he would see are hundreds of workers scrambling to get a place on the Rosslare train to travel to Dublin to work.
If you get on the train, it is standing room only.
While the Minister and his department along with the NTA continue to talk long term about ongoing consultations, the need for reports and the frequency of trains, the reality is action needs to be taken now to alleviate stress on the numbers using the train from Wicklow Town.
It does not require countless reports from consultants costing hundreds of thousands of euros to make a decision to hitch an extra carriage onto the end of the train.
Minister Ryan lectures workers enough about the need to take less car journeys. I know that we want to travel less in our cars here, but we need a public transport system which is fit for purpose and capable of absorbing the numbers who are currently travelling by car.
And the fact that we have a Minister that is big on sound bites but has offered little in the way of progress means that we remain stuck with a public transport system here in the county which if anything is contributing to the number of car journeys being undertaken by workers daily.
If Minister Ryan or any of his party colleagues have a problem accepting that fact, I challenge them to attempt to take a spin on the N11 during morning or evening rush hour traffic.
I am calling on the Minister and the NTA to act now to address the current overcrowding on the rail service on the Rosslare train travelling through Wicklow Town.”