Safety on Irish transport is “Good enough”

Operation Twin Tracks, a campaign to put a stop to antisocial behaviour on public transport in Ireland took place just last week.

This extensive campaign took place in a large range of public transport stations ranging from Heuston train station, to Sligo train station.

Gardai paroled around a multitude of dart stations, Luas stations and bus stops answering public enquiries about transportation and listening to safety concerns.

A spokesperson for the National Transport authority which oversees the Luas, Jennifer Gilna told the Liberty, “I do think that safety on public transport in Ireland is good enough”.

“In 2023, 308 million passenger journeys were undertaken in Ireland which will provide context around the volume of people that are transported.  In 2023 we had 2,791 incidents of antisocial behaviour reported to the transport operators”

 “On Dublin Bus in 2023 there was 145 million passenger journeys and 621 ASB (antisocial behaviour) incidents were recorded, on Go-Ahead Ireland 16 million passenger journeys and 320 ASB incidents were recorded. On the LUAS 48.2 million passenger journeys and 745 ASB incidents were recorded. On Irish Rail 45.5 million passenger journeys and 740 ASB incidents were recorded and finally on Bus Eireann 44 million passenger journeys and 372 ASB incidents were recorded.”

Operation Saul, an ongoing public transport safety operation run by AGS (an Garda Siochana), which runs throughout the Greater Dublin Area is another operation that’s in place to prevent antisocial behaviour on Irish transport systems.

Gilna explains operation Saul to the Liberty, “Personnel are deployed to perform, overt and covert patrols on board all public transport services covering Dublin Bus, Go-Ahead Ireland, Bus Eireann, LUAS, DART and Irish Rail.  Members performing patrols on public transport take effective action where an offence is detected and initiate prosecutions where appropriate”.

In an interview with UCD student Laoise Devlin she says, “I think public transport in Dublin is just bad in general, but I’ve never felt unsafe, like I’ve felt uncomfortable at most but that’s sort of it.

“I’d say that I use public transport most days, mainly the bus. After work sometimes there’s a few interesting characters on the bus, but I never feel threatened just slightly uncomfortable sometimes when they’re like shouting or chugging back drink on the bus.”