No child fares available through ticket machine
 

Last week I decided to get the train with the kids into the Tallship festival, As there was nobody on the ticket office I had to pay through the ticket machine.

There is no option to pay kids fares for the train, Is this correct?,

Are kids free on the train up to a certain age or do all kids including toddlers need to pay the adult fares?

There is no information available in the station and I ended up paying adult fares for the kids.

Child tickets are not available from the machines

The machines do offer a family ticket for 2 adults, 4 children

No legal obligation to pay adult fare for children if child option not available

Under 3 free in Dublin/Cork commuter area, under 5 on intercity

Another option is to get child Leap Cards. https://www.leapcard.ie/StagingPage....haseSt rategy

Note children 12-15 need a different card: https://www.leapcard.ie/_uploads/Chi...Form131011.pdf

Child fares are not offered from some ticket machines due to abuse of the facility by 16/17 year olds and some older again. They can be purchased at the booking office if open, or at the destination.

Its more like, Irish Rail revenue protection are not up to the job as if they were doing an effective job such abuse would be quickly stamped out. So instead of solving the problem, Irish Rail stopped selling child tickets at the machines.

This is a typically idiotic response from Irish Rail. Punish the majority of paying customers for the sins of a minority.

I presume you would be well within your rights to take children on the DART for free where there was nobody at ticket offices on either end and no inspector on the train.

Yes children go free in the above cases