Bank holiday promises marathon travel plans

Planes, trains and automobiles will drive tens of thousands of people to distraction as they try to get to the raft of cultural events over this Bank Holiday weekend.

The October break is traditionally one of the busiest weekends of the year in terms of entertainment - the highlights this time being the Cork Jazz Festival, the Dublin Electronic Arts Festival, the Belfast Arts Festival and the Patrick O'Keeffe Traditional Music Festival in Castleisland, Co Kerry.

And for anyone with any energy left at the end of all that, there's the Dublin City Marathon on Monday. Over 7,000 athletes are expected to takepart. As ever, there will be major traffic restrictions in the city centre throughout Sunday and Monday.

Runners will be pleased to hear weather is forecast to be mild and sunny, after a weekend that is forecast to be largely cold, with some sunny spells and a high risk of scattered showers throughout the country.

Gardaí will be staging their road safety campaign, Operation Taisteal, which runs from early this morning to midnight on Monday and will see checkpoints on all major roads, particularly in accident blackspots.

Officers will be focusing on clamping down on drink-driving, speeding and the behaviour of young male drivers. They are also reminding motorists that it is compulsory for all occupants of vehicles to wear seatbelts.

During the October Bank Holiday period last year, six people died on Irish roads and over 173 were injured.

The Aer Lingus dispute, which created major disruption for passengers earlier this week, is set to continue on Monday, with 1,000 IMPACT cabin crew staging a one-day strike. However, the airline says it has a contingency plan that they hope will minimise delays and that it will have a "close to full schedule". Passengers should contact the airline on 0818-65000 for further details.

Bus Éireann estimate they will carry over 100,000 people the length and breadth of the country, including hundreds of jazz fans on a special fleet of buses from Dublin to Cork this afternoon.

Dublin punters intending to get the train to Cork have been warned by Iarnród Éireann that buying advance tickets is strongly recommended, as they are expecting huge demand for seats, which are subject to a reservation system. They are asking as many people as possible to use early morning InterCity trains to avoid congestion.

Travellers to Belfast for the Arts Festival in Queens face a bus link between Drogheda and Dundalk to facilitate a line upgrade.

Irish Ferries and Stena Sealink say they will be carrying almost 100,000 passengers and their vehicles between them on their routes linking Ireland to Britain and France.

Once again, there will be no DART on the southside of the capital this weekend, with passengers being accommodated on extra buses instead. Dublin Bus will be doubling the number of buses on selected routes to cope with the overflow.