It is difficult to draw a dividing line unless intercity and urban are segregated, but it is not unreasonable to give season-ticket commuters one or two "lives" when it comes to making a genuine mistake and they have ID that proves they are who they say they are. I suspect this mostly happens in practice anyway as it is extremely rare I would be asked for a ticket.
Actually, one thing I've not seen in this case is an explanation of how she got through the barriers at Heuston. I'm not terribly familiar with Heuston but I would expect it is difficult to get through the barriers without a ticket and this in and of itself could be considered evidence of wilful fare evasion.
I am not in the slightest bit in favour of fare evasion. It pushes up the price of tickets for everyone else and it should be prosecuted in most cases. I personally think that the fines are way too small as they are pretty close to the maximum fare on the network. However, being aggressive against a relatively minor loss of revenue and with a fairly reasonable excuse does seem to be counterproductive. Perhaps a ticking-off and collection of the fare difference would be more reasonable if the person can provide ID and can be proven not to have a history of such errors.
A lot of businesses now routinely record customer transactions so as to be able to unambiguously resolve such disputes. If your local Centra can do this, why can't Irish Rail. Ah yes, the union might have a problem.
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