Sir, - You reported that the president of the Irish Hotel Federation, Mr William Power, had condemned CIE as a "dinosaur" (The Irish Times, February 23rd). I can only conclude that this was a cheap shot and a ploy by Mr Power to bring publicity to his conference.
Of course it's fashionable for people like Mr Power to criticise CIE without any support for the allegations which he makes against the company and its dedicated workforce, who provide a service 24 hours a day, 364 days of the year, against a background of severe under-funding from successive governments.
Mr Power would have been better served to have done some research into what causes CIE to use sub-standard buses and trains. He will easily find out that this has resulted from a lack of funding from successive governments.
To describe CIE as a "dinosaur" is nothing short of a downright insult to the workers in CIE and I fully support the comments made by the chief executive, Mr McDonnell, on Morning Ireland on February 22nd, when he said that CIE has the best workforce in Ireland but because of the lack of investment the company has suffered severely down through the years.
When Mr Power states: "It is simply ludicrous that trains and buses do not depart or arrive at times stated in the timetables" and that the 5 million people who visited the State last year were shocked at the quality of service. This is ridiculous and irresponsible in the extreme. Mr Power's suggestion that CIE should be disbanded to allow a private company to run the State's transport system is ridiculous. He should do an analysis on what happened in Britain, where the railway system has been broken up into several companies and privatised. The quality of the trains has deteriorated very considerably, the time keeping of trains has disimproved to an unbelievable state. An article in the London Times of February 11th headed, "Railway firms under fire for late trains", stated that the majority of routes in Britain had suffered a fall in punctuality during 1998. The survey showed the performance by companies on some routes were truly awful and their performance was not improving. So much, Mr Power, for privatisation.
I am calling on Mr Power to support Mr McDonnell, chief executive of CIE, his board and SIPTU to in lobbying the Government for additional funding for rail infrastructure and rail engines and for new buses for Bus Eireann and Bus Atha Cliath. Only then can the country give a proper transport system to the people of Ireland and the tourists who visit here. - Yours, etc., Tony Tobin,
Branch secretary, SIPTU, Liberty Hall, Dublin 1.