FFG not investing over the years
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Since the Brits left, all Paddy has done is rip up or abandon rail lines. How long will it take to build a rail line to Navan?
What about the North West route from Monaghan to Donegal, completely neglected
Everyone ripped up lines, nothing unique to Ireland.
People hated the rail service when it was everywhere anyway.
Did the Germans rip up their lines?
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Im going to answer my own question here Tim. Ive travelled extensively around, France, Germany, Holland and Belgium. My personal experience is that everywhere is very accesible by rail, even small out of the way places. In these countries, there would be plenty of rail lines serving the equivalent of Navan, Monaghan and Donegal. TBH, given the flatness of the terrain here, it would be an easy job, certainly nothing like Bridge on the River Kwai difficulties, or drilling tunnells through the Alps.
Again, in Scotland which is a very hilly terrain, they have excellent rail links and very scenic. Its my opinion that successive governments FF/FG have destroyed the rail service in this state for a carcentric model.
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Todd Andrews broke Irelands rail service out of spite.
And his grandson essentially broke RTE. What a family legacy.
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In fairness the population density and the level of interconnectivity in those countries is on another level to here. If you are talking about “small, out of the way places” in a European context then Donegal would rank fairly high on the list.
Below is just a portion of Britanny . See how well every nook and cranny is supported with rail services. This is replicated all over France and Germany. No reason why the places I mentioned in Ireland shouldn’t have good rail links including, using your terminology remote Donegal. For fecks sake there was rail lines all over Donegal and Monaghan in the 1950s.
Brittany has roughly the same population as the Republic contained in about half the area, so again it’s more densely populated. I won’t pretend to be an expert on French rail but I’m guessing the lines are fundamentally operated by the same company operating railways across France, so there is expertise etc there to scale. On the flip side, it looks like they haven’t actually covered every nook and cranny, they have avoided the interior of the peninsula entirely.
I’m not against railways to Donegal as it happens, just given the effects of partition and population decline in the last century I can understand why we don’t have one.
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You must not be aware of the Beeching cuts.
All European countries had cuts to varying degrees. Survival was like here, where there was some level of density (not a lot in Ireland).
Today is the 190th anniversary of the start of passenger services from Westland Row to Kingstown, Ireland’s first railway and the first commuter rail service in the world. @Little_Lord_Fauntleroy
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Presume the free travel for kids starts from tomorrow @Little_Lord_Fauntleroy ?
Trying to book a train for weekend and it’s still charging me for the little wan.
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In Ireland, children under five years old currently travel for free on all publicly funded public transport services, including Bus Éireann, Iarnród Éireann, Luas, DART, and Dublin Bus.
As part of Budget 2025, the Irish government announced plans to extend free public transport to children up to the age of eight.
This extension is expected to take effect in the summer of 2025.
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Never knew that…so free travel and free healthcare for all under 8s. That is a pretty big step forward in a few years for the country
Free schoolbooks too
People wernt happy with this though
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And my kids have had free hot lunches for the last year also…hail hail FFG
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Banana republic with 3rd world services
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Greens mate
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