Iarnród Éireann is giving a "two-fingered" gesture to the Government and treats its fare-paying customers with "sheer contempt", Fine Gael has claimed in the controversy over the weekend closures of the Dublin DART rail line for upgrading.
Party leader Mr Enda Kenny said the rail company's refusal to put off closure of the DART line until the New Year, and the "astonishing" disclosure that it "did not see fit" to inform the Minister in charge well in advance, begged the question as to who was in charge.
"Is Iarnród Éireann entitled to say to the Government that it will not take on board the Government's request in respect of fare-paying customers?" he asked.
He also said it was "contemptible" that a brochure, the first information "the public is given, was handed out to them this morning as fare-paying customers on the DART line. It is not good enough."
The Taoiseach, who criticised the rail company for its failure to give proper warning of its closure plan, said, however, at this stage "to change the schedule would probably create more difficulties than it is worth".
Mr Ahern said: "quite frankly, the communications strategy could have been a bit better. They said in the springtime that they were going to do this work, but unfortunately they did not tell the Government, the Department and most important of all the customers, until the last few days."
The Taoiseach confirmed that CIE's chairman stated yesterday morning that the DART works would be put on hold over the weekends in December and would pick up in the "valley periods" in the new year, agreeing to the suggestion of the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan.
In December "there is huge use of the DART with Saturdays and Sundays seeing far higher volumes of traffic than at any other time of the year", Mr Ahern said
"I assume the work will start now, but will not continue in December when it would be most inconvenient to customers and to businesses," Mr Ahern said. "From the communications viewpoint, there is a lesson to be learnt from this. However, we still want to see this work undertaken."
He pointed to the €176 million investment to upgrade the service and said once completed it would give a 30 per cent increase in capacity for the fare-paying passenger on the line that runs from Howth, Co Dublin, to Greystones, Co Wicklow. "We welcome this work as it will take cars off the road and is good, overall, for public transport."
The rail company plans to close DART stations from Pearse station to Greystones every weekend from this weekend until mid-June next year and then the same closures would occur on the northside of the line. Work would start after the last DART on Friday night and continue round the clock until early Monday morning and "the most efficient and value for money option", said Mr Ahern, was to "close a large chunk of the network at a time as the power has to be shut down to undertake work on the overhead lines".
