Iarnród Éireann paid almost €150k in compensation to passengers in 10 months

Iarnród Éireann paid out almost €150,000 in over 5,500 compensation payments to passengers for delayed, dirty, and overcrowded trains in the first 10 months of 2024.

European Transport Committee MEP, Cynthia Ní Mhurchú, said she obtained the figures after a "12-month battle" with Iarnród Éireann to release them.

Iarnród Éireann has paid passengers compensation for issues such as late trains, rude staff, cancellations, train failures, reserved seats being occupied, overcrowding, cleanliness issues, anti-social behaviour, and inappropriate behaviour of staff.

The figures show that Iarnród Éireann paid out €148,934.08 to passengers in the first 10 months of 2024.

When travelling by rail, passengers are protected by EU wide travel rights which includes refunds for delays, Ní Mhurchú said.

Iarnród Éireann have incorporated EU passenger rights into a Customer Charter which sets out their commitments to hitting a range of targets when it comes to customer service.

For delays of between one and two hours, Iarnród Éireann commit to refunding 50 per cent of that journey in Irish Rail vouchers or 25 per cent in cash.

For delays of over two hours, Iarnród Éireann commit to a full refund in vouchers or a 50 per cent refund in cash.

They also commit to a full refund, in vouchers, if your reserved seat is unavailable and there is no other seat of the same standard on the train.

Ní Mhurchú said that she warmly welcomes recent investment announcements at Iarnród Éireann, but said there is little point in having more train schedules until punctuality, cleanliness, and safety for passengers is improved.

“Big announcements are great but if we want people to make the switch from the car to the train, then our trains have to be clean, on time and focused on better customer service.

"Iarnród Éireann likes to trumpet a 93 per cent satisfaction rate on its intercity services — but when you’re running 12 million journeys a year on those services, that still leaves roughly 840,000 unhappy passengers every single year (7 per cent). That’s hardly a customer service record to be boasting about.”