NBRU calls a spade a spade

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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