Retail trade and traffic were reported quiet in Dublin city centre at the weekend as the first shutdown of DART services began. The southside DART line from Grand Canal Dock to Greystones is closing at weekends for the next nine months, apart from in December, while upgrading work takes place.
The vice-chairman of the Dublin City Centre Business Association, Mr Basil Good, said it was too early to say how the closure affected business but he had talked to members and there was huge concern about their trade.
The association is starting an advertising campaign costing half a million euro in the next few days to promote the city centre and tell people that it was open at weekends, he said.
Although the DART would be open for weekends in December, Mr Good said that Christmas starts in November and people were doing their Christmas shopping earlier.
"We're losing out more and more because of the chaos. To many shops, about 40 per cent of their annual trade comes in the few weeks before Christmas," he said.
Dublin Chamber of Commerce policy director Mr Declan Martin said: "We've been keeping a close eye on it and the general view has been that it was a quiet weekend but whether it was the DART closure or simply the time of year, we can't say."
A Dublin Bus spokeswoman said that they had ten inspectors located at the DART stations to inform passengers of their extra buses on routes including numbers 7, 45, 46A, 59 and 84.
However, the Mayor of Greystones, Mr George Jones, said it was clear there were not any extra buses being put on the Greystones route.
Iarnród Éireann had ignored the customer, he said.