NBRU calls a spade a spade

Kyriakos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EV7GbDfF-0

Starts about 2:50 into the discussion, well its clear as day he is calling out the the free travel card holding dirtbags and we can all see with our own eyes he is not wrong. every dirtbag has free travel and i would go so far as to say the issuing of free travel cards has increased in the last 2 years to ridiculous levels .

Something has to be done , no doubt , but will any politicians have the guts to tackle the problem?

Free travel for only OAP and those with serious health conditions that leave them with severely reduced mobility, every minor mickey mouse ailment gets a free travel card these days, if you can use public transport to go to work, the gym, football training or out for a night on clubbing, why the hell do you have one in the first place?

If you have a companion pass, why are you out on your own traveling? If you need a companion only sometimes when your illness strikes, then you should buy a ticket the rest of the time when your are healthy and solo.

Another think that is puzzling is the amount of non eu, people with Free travel pass, you try emigrating to a country and see how the restrictions will require you to have money in the bank and hold down a job, we are importing Africans and Asians who don't speak a word of english and are straight onto the social welfare free travel scheme, how does that make any sense, just another burden on a already strained system.

whisky_galore

The vast vast majority of those acting like scum are our very own home-grown native Irish sh1theels, drunken or drug addled or simply causing trouble because it's Tuesday.

end of the road

the op is basically a rant about the free travel scheme which is irrelevant to this issue as are foreign countries, foreign nationals etc.

the vermin engaging in anti-social behaviour aren't doing so because they are on free travel passes, assuming they are, they are doing it because they are just nasty pieces of work and that would continue even if none such folk ever were on the ftp scheme.

more likely, it is that they are boarding the trains without paying and they would do that while there are hardly any staff around.

if someone is deemed to be qualified to receive the ftp then your opinion on it is going to change jot all, as is quite right.

as far as i am aware the companion pass never meant someone absolutely had to have one at all times, but rather their disability is such that they may need it in certain situations or perhapse all of the time, but once they are deemed to qualify based on actual evidence rather then the opinions of users on boards.ie then the authorities will be satisfied with their use and individuals buying tickets when they have been deemed to qualify for the ftp benefit is nonsense all be it users do have to get and present a ticket as far as i am aware.

Beechwoodspark

Scummers regardless of whether Irish or foreign, shouldn’t have access to the free travel pass.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058215871/nbru-calls-a-spade-a-spade

That's quite a lot of hate for one post Op

SeanW

I'd imagine the scumbags on the trains run the gamut of groups, some native Irish, some foreign. While you could argue that the free passes are too common, to me the problem looks a lot simpler:

1) The complete lack of any kind of a Irish Transport Police, similar what they have in Britain.

2) Not enough punishment for scumbags the few times they're caught.

3) Wider societal issues/breakdown. I don't remember this kind of thing being so common, in years gone by, except for the odd scumbag stoning passing trains at Broombridge.

I'm not a big fan of strikes the attendant disruption but I'm with the unions on this one. Enough is enough. Nobody should have to put up with that kind of carry on.

Burt Renaults

I work in public transport, and 99% of the trouble I witness involves Irish people under 18, who don't have free travel passes. The vast majority of non-Irish passengers I deal with do not have free travel passes. The vast majority of people under 65 who have them - including people incapacitated by years of drug addiction - tend not to engage in anti-social behaviour on public transport.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118114544#Comment_118114544

Checks out, U18s untouchable under the law and nothing to lose.

Citrus_8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118123775#Comment_118123775

That's a wrong approach, sadly. I wonder, do parents care about their children? Seems they are too lazy to bother raising them well and educating common sense, ethics and well manners. I've seen some examples on streets when it looks that parents are trying to be nice to their children but forget that being nice should also have its limits. It's not enough just to be a nice parent to be a good parent. Responsibilities have to be tough too. Sometimes it seems parents are serving their egoistic children's needs... It should be mandatory to pass a responsible parenthood course for all parents, before they get to hold their child in the hands.

Hilly Bill

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058215871/nbru-calls-a-spade-a-spade

Its across the board, its not a free travel issue and it would be wrong to single them out. Its paying passengers , those who dont intend to pay and some who are on free travel. Some of the security are spot on and you know they have your back but some are just plain useless and rather have their faces glued to their phones than respond to a call on the radio.

There is supposed to be a zero tolerance on abuse but management dont really give a fiddlers, they just want to take their over inflated wages and hide in offices or at home. It took for 2 of the reqular security lads to be hospitalized in Connolly before management bowed down to their request for extra security.

Unions dont care unless their precious train drivers are affected only then will the get involved. Station staff get abused and assaulted nearly every day ,a driver rarely but its only on that rare occasion will the unions get involved.

Unions are a waste of time and serve the interest of the company rather than the interest of its members, they just stick their heads out every now and then just to be seen to be doing something.

Kermit.de.frog

At the end of the day there is a very serious anti social behaviour problem in this country and it boils down to lack of consequences.

When you marry an absurdly lenient welfare system (and the free travel passes) with a non existent justice system it leads to the behaviour everyone sees day in, day out.

No consequences, it's generational, they can do whatever the hell they like.

It's sad because it means we all have to accept therefore that there are things we can't have like barrier free transport for example. It's madness in this society and the way this place is run. The Luas is am example. The red line is already no go and the green line is going the sane way.

And this will only get worse as it is year after year because like I say it's generational.

Nobody wants to deal with the roots of the problem.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118126009#Comment_118126009

Like the previous post, if the parents are scumbags themselves there isn't a lot that can be done with the current kid-glove approach.

There will be some fun sh1t going down on the streets in the coming decade.

Citrus_8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118255794#Comment_118255794

If parents get social welfare they should be sent for mandatory courses. Firstly, parenting, ethics and scial responsibilities, then the rest to upskill in order them to get jobs, otherwise, cut welfare payments less and less. I work hard, I pay tax and pay for these scums who raise a new generation of worse scums. They should know the price of money and responsibilities. And those who works but don't raise children well who make troubles to the society, should be penalised for bad parenting.

BanditLuke

These threads always turn out the same, an exercise in social welfare bashing.

whisky_galore

A lot of 'should be', unfortunately lawmakers don't travel by DART or Luas red line, likewise the operators of all these well-meaning SJW outfits whose influence is way out of proportion to their size.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118256151#Comment_118256151

If parents get social welfare they should be sent for mandatory courses

Every parent gets social welfare in the form of the childrens allowance

end of the road

here is the reality.

social wellfare or free travel passes have absolutely nothing to do with anti-social behaviour, people are anti-social regardless of them, not because of them.

even if they were removed tomorrow there would still be anti-social behaviour and there would still be no barrier free travel.

parenting courses or this course or that course is mostly unworkable as it is ultimately going to operate on an opinion of how a parent should parent which i can even tell is a subjective opinion and 1 method is disputed by other people and so on.

the only thing there is a point on here is the lack of gardai and low sentences for some crimes but that is down to the politicians to sort out, and obviously not enough of the public want these things changed as they keep voting for the same parties and politicians who refuse to change it and who allowed it in the first place.

mythical sjw groups aren't relevant here either because even if they didn't exist, same as the actual evidence based lobby groups for various subjects who do exist thankfully so as to hold government to account, we would still be in the same situation.

Kermit.de.frog

These are policy decisions.

Think about where all the transport nodes meet and what Dublin City Council are doing.

I just read about 21 new apartments on Pearse St. Every single one of them social housing.

That's happening everywhere in the city center. If it's not a Peter McVerry slum it's social housing.

They are making Ballymun of the city center and if they continue they'll get Ballymun. Although it's probably reached that point already despite all the promises of ghettos being a thing of the past. Mixed tenure was the mantra, no more.

Is it any wonder the results are seen every single day on every mode of public transport?

We don't even have a transport police.

We are all over the shop.

You can't improve anything unless someone in politics is prepared to do something to stop the rot.

Citrus_8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118256301#Comment_118256301

That's not what I mean. Talking about chronic jobseekers.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118258451#Comment_118258451

lovely, describing housing schemes implemented by people who get off their arses and actually do something to help others which the government refuse to do, as a slum based on the people living there being a mix of people who simply need help with housing, or who have other difficulties, absolute classist bollox.

you voted for the politicians who divested in the gardai, you voted for the politicians who refuse to invest in it again, you voted for the politicians who do not remove lenient sentences for violent crimes, and you are now whinging because you got what you wanted, oh but you didn't want it but still kept voting the same way regardless.

not to mention as i said, discribing the housing schems of a charity who got off their backsides and are doing what the government should be doing as slums when there is no evidence of that what soever.

what have you done about anything apart from whinging on here?

Del2005

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118258754#Comment_118258754

The "charities" providing housing are all funded by the government, the housing trusts are borrowing on our taxes. The government for some reason doesn't want to directly invest in housing but saying that the government is doing nothing and "charities" are doing it all is BS, you could say we've too many charities looking after homeless as they are diluting the income by having duplicates of paid employees in each "charity".

We've voted for the current situation and none of the political parties are campaigning to fix the anti social behaviour problems in our county, even the "left" parties are ignoring it even though it's affecting their electorate proportionately more.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118274236#Comment_118274236

i didn't vote for it.

and there is 1 party who actually does plan to deal with anti-social behavior, i voted for them for every election since i could vote but that's another thread.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118274953#Comment_118274953

Knee capping enforcement

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118286687#Comment_118286687

where? when? have you reported this to the gardai?

dublinman1990

I was listening to a podcast from Independent.ie about this chronic issue on the trains a few weeks ago.

One angle of the stories that were highlighted by people who were giving them to the paper were really eye opening to be honest especially if you were a vulnerable young woman who 2as using the train to travel on their own. You would hear things from the male scumbags who would talk to these women that they would be drugged or raped if they didn't time with this animals.

There were other occasions when two so-called hard men would challenge themselves to having a fight on the train in broad daylight when small amounts of other passengers were around them.

The link to the episode in question is here.

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cub21ueWNvbnRlbnQuY29tL2QvcGxheWxpc3QvZmRkN2FiNDAtMjcwZC00YTFlLWEyNTctYWNkMjAwZGExMzI0Lzc2YjU1MTdlLWFhZWEtNDBhZi1hN2VjLWFkYmYwMTAyOTE0Yi85ZmY4OTAzMi1mYzFiLTQwNzgtYWFjOC1hZGJmMDEwMjkxNWQvcG9kY2FzdC5yc3M/episode/MWFmMGYwOTYtMzQwNC00MzkwLTkzMWItYWRkNDAxODkwOTg0?ep=14

My own view on this particular story is that the effects of lockdown within this section of the public transport system has magnified the level of fear out there that is being spread among decent people in how to help themselves to keep safe and to help others as an outlet for doing same.

No decent person out there who live in this country should never have to deserve to be in fear when they get to use these pieces of critical infrastructure when they intend to use it as a private citizen. They want to be safe from harm's way & get away from encountering the consequences while observing these dangerous scumbags when they are out from a public street.

You have the likes of anti-vaxxers going out there to cause trouble when they are using buses as a means of travel to go to anti-lockdown protests during the pandemic. And then you have the scumbags openly trading illegal drugs right in front of people's eyes while they are travelling on mainline trains.

Seeing stuff like that occurring in broad daylight & then trying to intervene stopped the situation from escalating could frighten the living crap out of you in return. People who don't want to follow that lifestyle whatsoever should not deserve to become a possible victim of their own demise when it wasn't really their own fault.

There are some large amounts of scumbags who are out there & exploit that type of lifestyle for their own good to the detriment of everyone else around them.

How in the name of god are we suppose to have a safe public transport system now particularly in an era of climate change when this stuff still remains unresolved.

I have read many times on this site over the past while that money is not an issue while we live here in this country. We should be able to plough in enough money to set up a transport police here while we have the abundant financial resources to get one setup to get the public to see the benefits of having a strong visibility while they use these critical public services.

dublinman1990

I have been reading that IÉ staff have voted in favour of industrial action earlier this week as an attempt to address issues relating to anti-social behaviour taking place on their rail services during the pandemic.

No date has been set by the unions so far.

But you would probably have the nagging feeling inside you that this industrial action by IÉ staff could begin within the first few weeks of 2022. I wonder what is that going to do, Omicron permitting, with how the schools & some of the workplaces will come back to normal from January.

There was also more calls from Dermot O'Leary of the NBRU asking for a 5ransport police to be set up again & what were the people in charge going to do next to prevent anti social behaviour from happening again on PT services in future.

He asked them whether they were doing nothing until some other serious incident happens on these services to try & address the problem for passengers & staff members who use them regularly.

All in all; whatever solutions come out of this ASB problem. It's going to be a very trying time for the parties involved to try & resolve it just after the new year has passed over us.

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058215871/nbru-calls-a-spade-a-spade

Tell us what you think he is saying... i think its waffle...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118368496#Comment_118368496

Transport Unions, driving demand for autonomous public transport one strike at a time

Not dismissing the ASB issue, but a strike does nothing to address the issue

Mrs OBumble

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118368615#Comment_118368615

Yeah, cos totally automated public transport would be such a safe thing to be on, in terms of ASB. 'Twould be overflowing with passengers.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118368623#Comment_118368623

Are you under the illusion the train or bus driver can prevent ASB?

If they could there wouldn't be any issue.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118368615#Comment_118368615

What other options do the unions have? They've been raising the issue politely for years.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118368615#Comment_118368615

not the case at all.

we are no more closer to automation now then we ever were in reality, remember automation isn't just simply getting the vehicle moving as that was possible since the 1960s hence being implemented from scratch on built from scratch metro systems.

All I know is an autonomous system won't go on strike and leave me stuck for transport.

At the end of the day, a transport service that doesn't, well, transport, needs to be re-examined and alternatives invested in.

For some, that's cars, others it's bikes or scooters. For the decision makers, it's assessing the suitability of autonomous vehicles. Sure they are not there yet...... But they will be, some day.

Again, just to clarify, not dismissing the ASB issue. If the staff have an issue it should be resolved, but throwing a tantrum and issuing threats to the travelling public just loses support for your cause.

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118368615#Comment_118368615

I agree why don't they have transport police like in other countries...

whisky_galore

Shur it'll be grand. Is there anything to be said for another Garda "day of action?"

I guess we have to wait until someone gets killed before anything is done.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118370307#Comment_118370307

If you were getting threatened with physical violence going about your job, what would you do? Write a strongly worded letter to the papers?

It's all very well talking from the comfort of your wfh or office environment or wherever it is you work.

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118370411#Comment_118370411

What do you think would resolve the problem...

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118370411#Comment_118370411

Read the last line of the post you quoted

end of the road

the workers have had enough.

that's it, that's the reality.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118370398#Comment_118370398

https://www.limerickleader.ie/news/national-news/828122/garda-in-twin-tracks-anti-social-behaviour-clampdown-on-public-transport.html

Operation Something Or Other hi-vis photoshoot!

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118102488#Comment_118102488

Anyone with a criminal record should not have access to one!

Drug addicts should not have one either unless they are going for therapy.

Government are funding crime in part!

It always amuses me how much the ftp triggers some people

whisky_galore

When the Dublin Cork train is used a free transportation system for drugs it's hardly surprising people are pissed off. Maybe you like the idea of that but most people dont relish the thought of parting with hard earned money to sit in the same carriage as drug mules.

Whoop de doo, another "day of action" from the gourds to make up for all the days of inaction.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119156525#Comment_119156525

that's a very different issue to what darcore said, and it's a lack of enforcement and garda action issue, not an FTP issue as well as an irish rail failure.

Burt Renaults

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119155965#Comment_119155965

Personally, I don't think it's defensible that someone struggling to make ends meet in a minimum wage job should have to pay to use public transport, while others (whoever they are - whether it's people with drug problems or wealthy pensioners) can travel for free. I'd prefer to just make it free for everyone, perhaps funded through an increase in car tax.

drivingmissdaisy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119155965#Comment_119155965

consider that the old Red paper pass is still valid

expired/Blocked FTP credit card passes are still valid, flash a beer mat and you are good to go

Ukrainians are traveling for free , no longer show passport, just the flash the following on their phone and away they go, but why you ask? Well there are no ticket inspectors? Try it yourself, show this on your phone screen and the driver will wave you on, why? No pay rise since 2016 and that pay rise terms still ain't fulfilled , so you have staff who dont care, 2022 and we are still owed money from 2016 and we all can see the price of EVERYTHING is rising, today average industrial wage in Ireland is now 49k, DB no where near DB pay, and DB where considered the average workers wage for many years

Drivers all talk/pray of redundancy offer, in recruitment ads the models look older that current drivers retiring!! No one in 20's,30's,40's,50's interested in the job, more money to be made else where and not dealing with scum of the earth!

Unless big increase in pay, current staff leaving at a slow but noticeable pace and very, very hard to get new drivers

DB training center hopes to get 450 new drivers this year, not going to happen, 250 drivers retiring this year, GA in a even worse predicament, their drivers are queuing up to join DB.

Its going to be a very interesting 12 months ahead

drivingmissdaisy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119159417#Comment_119159417

Ukrainians who have never paid a penny tax, who are now put up in Irish Hotels will all meals provided are getting the full dole, so they have more expendable money that our own! They trave for free, well i tell you now, any irish who get on my bus and say they have a FTP , well thats good enough for me, i dont need to see it! Try it and see how drivers respond.

newmember2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118368615#Comment_118368615

Also...doing nothing does nothing to address the issue.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119160026#Comment_119160026

Like I said, amusing.

Whether or not someone has a ftp has no bearing on anything.

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119157415#Comment_119157415

Take the ftp off people who abuse it or dont deserve it. Simple.

end of the road

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119163842#Comment_119163842

they are already removed from people who abuse it where possible, the legislation allows confiscation.

it's not possible to remove it from those who don't deserve it as those who don't deserve it already don't have it as they don't qualify for it, and after that everything is so subjective and to opinion based to work.