Áilín Quinlan: I challenge the Taoiseach to take the bus and see what’s happening

I’m issuing a challenge to the Taoiseach and the Minister for Transport.

See for yourselves. The shouting. The fighting. The visible drug use on board our trains and buses.

Observe the blatant drunkenness that bus drivers and rail employees have to put up with.

Watch gobshites spitting at bus drivers and other public transport employees.

Observe how their behaviour intimidates other passengers.

This carry-on, it seems, has become normalised.

It’s now apparently the view of some that it’s ok to spit at a bus driver, to engage in aggressive or lewd behaviour or start a fight on board a bus or train.

Why aren’t the government and the gardaí doing something about it?

Does some unfortunate commuter have to be badly injured or killed before they establish the recommended, desperately sought-after, dedicated units of Transport Gardai to combat the escalating violence on our buses and trains?

Is there, perhaps, a perception at some level in government that people who use public transport don’t matter?

Or that people who work on public transport don’t matter?

While the government gets hot and bothered about a few farmers taking turf from their own bogs, public transport employees are leaving their jobs because they’re being viciously assaulted.

Take one of Cork’s very own bus routes, one which traverses the Taoiseach’s native city.

The 203, according to Dermot O’Leary, general secretary of the National Bus and Rail Union, is now “very much a problem.”

I challenge the Taoiseach, Cork’s own Micheál Martin (whose late father worked as a bus driver, by the way), and his government colleague, Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien, to quietly board this bus, wearing informal clothing and caps and accompanied (or not) by plainclothes security.

Take a seat down the back, lads, and travel the entire route from Parklands Drive on the city’s northside all the way over to Manor Farm, and at different points over a 24-hour period, observing what staff and passengers have to put up with.

Then, for God’s sake, if you see what Dermot O’Leary is talking about, do something before someone gets injured and our whole public transport system falls apart.

A National Transport Authority Report, which was published last year (Public Transport Passenger Personal Security report 2024) declares that Garda visibility remains the most favoured strategy for improving safety, followed by increased security staff, stronger sanctions and improved surveillance.

Get. It. Done.

It’s not as if the government could be ignorant of the escalating problems on public transport.

It’s not as if there’s been a great big news blackout on the appalling public transport shenanigans that have become, according to the National Bus and Rail Workers Union, “an almost daily occurrence.”

Behaviour reportedly ranges from inconsiderate – shouting and loud music - to smoking, drunkenness, visible drug taking, fighting and criminal damage caused to buses.

Commuters and staff have reported some downright disturbing behaviour- from someone sniffing a line of coke from a table, inhaling nitrous oxide or injecting, to defecating in public and indecent exposure.

Spitting at bus drivers, it seems, has become increasingly common, and verbal and physical assaults on employees happen far too often.

“Unfortunately, society has gone in such a way now that anti-social behaviour seems to be the norm on public transport,” Dermot O’Leary said earlier this week

And still the government does nothing.

Figures from Bus Éireann show there were 654 incidents of anti-social behaviour on buses last year - but the NBRU believes that’s under-reported, because, it’s felt, drivers are not reporting some incidents.

Why are we still waiting for an effective, dedicated garda unit to visibly, randomly, and continually board buses and trains?

I ask again. Why isn’t the government doing more to protect the ordinary people; employees and passengers, from this chaos on our public transport services?

Maybe it’s just down to the fact that our top political decision-makers have lost touch with the realities of life lived without the comfy buffers of political status, luxury and security protection.

Perhaps they don’t understand, for example, what it can be like to travel a route like the Cork city 203.

(And let’s face it, anti-social behaviour is not limited to public transport in Cork. It’s ubiquitous. Bus routes in Tallaght have had to be withdrawn because of such carry-on.)

The NBRU has proposed that a garda unit be formed to police public transport, something which can be introduced relatively simply and without legislation.

So I’m throwing down the gauntlet to Micheál Martin and Darragh O’Brien: get out there and witness what public transport can be like for some of the people who put you into power.

Then, get it sorted.