[Mark Gleeson]

Managements first obligation is to provide a safe reliable rail service

Right or wrong the actions on Thursday last without question where confrontational and broke with existing practices, ignored the usual proceedures and went outside the trade union agreements for dealing with problems. Did that justify the walk out, we don't know we where not there to witness it.

The net outcome was

90,000 people left without transport
Another 150,000 daily passengers in fear of the service vanishing countrywide the following morning
40 guys with morgages and families down a weeks pay despite being available to drive the trains those 90,000 wanted.

Has the passenger got anything in return of 7 days of trouble?

Service cancellations in Cork and country wide continue due to lack of drivers, a fact Irish Rail deny. As of today the reason is operational difficulties not driver issues.

Then there is the dirty secret of the Cobh line

Management are in no hurry to admit the Cobh line has turned into a disaster, only 1 of the 5 reasons for problems is the shortage of drivers, we got lack of gatekeepers, lack of signalmen, lack of serviceable trains and the engineering works for Midleton. Irish Rail buried this from the public, and have now gone as far as providing no bus subsitutions. We got Barry Kenny to admit there was a problem and that it was'nt on the website, on national radio but still nothing.

22k's won't be a problem in Cork once the staff are trained, since none of the staff in Cork are trained to drive a 29k (same transmission, cab layout, train management computer) its a big step up and will take time. Of course the fact the 22k doesn't fit in to the platform in Cork is more of an issue.