Short life for special Luas and bus services

Revellers dependent on public transport in Dublin city during Christmas should complete their late-night socialising in the small hours of December 23rd, it has emerged.

Both Luas and Nightlink extended services, laid on as part of the city's Operation Freeflow, will end on that date.

While yesterday was the official start of Freeflow, it also emerged that the additional Nightlink services will not start until December 13th.

Additional Luas services - each half-hour on both lines from 1 a.m to 3 a.m. - will not begin until December 2nd, and will run only from Thursdays to Sundays.

The timetables mean that the last additional trams or buses for party-goers will run in the early hours of December 23rd.

This means that revellers planning to avail of the extra Luas or Nightlink services will have their last night out on Wednesday, December 22nd.

Dublin Bus defended the decision to curtail extra services before Christmas by pointing out that "normal" Nightlink services, which run up to 2.30 a.m., would be available over the New Year period.

The company said that last year the city's burgeoning taxi fleet competed with the €4 per passenger fare. There are now more than 12,000 taxis in the city.

The Luas fare for the late-night service is also to be €4 per person.

Meanwhile, Dublin City Council has confirmed that while the 150 probationary gardaí went on duty at traffic "blackspots" yesterday, the annual ban on non-essential roadworks will not come into effect until tomorrow.

There will be no additional late-night DART service over the Christmas and New Year period.

Traffic conditions in Dublin city were described as "comparatively good" by the AA yesterday morning, but this may have been due in part at least to a 10-mile tailback from the Rathcoole interchange on the N7.

Traffic was at one stage backed up as far as the Naas junction, gardaí said.

Much of the problem was caused by single-lane queues over the slip-road at the junction. Gardaí said the slip-road could accommodate double-lane traffic and officers would be on duty there this morning to point out this to motorists.

The AA spokesman, Mr Conor Faughnan, said it was more important that the various branches of Freeflow fell into place gradually rather than starting on the same day. Much of the extra traffic during by the holiday season would be during the day, he said, particularly during the sales period.