As its says on the front page we what best international practice applied, that is not going to be welcomed by many within Irish Rail who wish to retain the current wasteful poorly supervised unaccountable staff arrangements. Irish Rail owes no one a job, but it owes the taxpayer a service so clearly our goals will cause grave concerns to some staff within Irish Rail and rightly so, a serious shake up is required
We are formulating a staffing plan (agreed in part at AGM), both station and on train and there is certainly a better way to do things, there needs to be a change in the terms of employment to deal with the need for weekend staffing without paying crazy overtime rates. Depending on route and demand there is a choice to be made between on train conductor/train manager and staffing stations with driver only trains
The response from informal contact with staff within Irish Rail has been very welcoming of the proposals, but I've been told neither the unions nor management are going to be eager to make the leap of faith despite it following practice in Northern Ireland, the rest of the UK and mainland Europe and offering a win for all parties, securing jobs, reducing costs and happier passengers.
And for the record Enniscorthy is on our list of stations to staff throughout service hours
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