Sun resorts prove popular as 350,000 fly out

The bank holiday weekend has been characterised by large numbers of people leaving the country for sunshine destinations, according to Aer Rianta.

Some 350,000 people were due to leave through the State's three main airports, 300,000 of them from Dublin. Much of the traffic through the airports was holiday charters and the top destinations were the sunshine resorts of the Spanish Mediterranean, the Canaries and Portugal.

All airports recorded an increase in the number of flights, the largest being Cork which recorded an increase of about 15 per cent.

An Aer Rianta spokeswoman said most of the departures were families taking advantage of the school holidays.

Stena reported 81,000 passengers and 17,000 vehicles leaving on sea routes between Ireland and Britain over the weekend, slightly up on last year's figures.

Irish Ferries said 40,000 passengers and 7,900 vehicles travelled on its route to Britain with 5,200 passengers and 1,100 vehicles on its Rosslare to Cherbourg route.

The roads out of Dublin and Cork were all very busy yesterday with the start of the bank holiday weekend. Multiple-vehicle crashes on the N11 at Arklow, and the N8 north of Mitchelstown, resulted in tailback of several miles.

Delays of between 30 minutes and one hour were experienced on the Kildare bypass approaching Monasterevin, Co Kildare, while gardaí reported a number of frustrated motorists were making u-turns on the motorway between Maynooth and Kilcock.

The AA advised drivers to leave early for return trips to Dublin and to expect congestion on all the main routes on Sunday and Monday evenings.

DART services south of Connolly Station and between Howth Junction and Howth have been cancelled for the Easter weekend, to allow work on the DART upgrade to proceed. Normal weekday services will resume on Tuesday.

Iarnród Éireann said a number of changes had been made to its inter-city, bank holiday weekend timetable and a spokeswoman advised intending passengers to contact their local railway stations to check times.

Train times are also available on the Iarnród Éireann website at irishrail.ie.