The chairperson of a Mayo based charity that had organised a day trip to Dublin Zoo has hit out Irish Rail after their groups had to split up and stand in aisles on their return journey from Dublin because the seats they had pre-booked were not reserved from them, she claimed. Áirc Mayo, a charity that supports children with disabilities, had a group of 47 on the trip on Monday including 16 special needs children on the outing to Dublin Zoo.
Kathryn Connor, chairperson of Áirc Mayo, told the Mayo Advertiser yesterday: "The whole thing was very bad, we're still trying to get over it. I personally had booked the train in May and was constantly in touch with Irish Rail up until the end of last week. We had booked a carriage for us up and one for us back down. Everything had gone great on the way up and the children all had a great day out at the zoo, but coming back was a nightmare.
"We were in Heuston Station a good hour before we were due to depart, but the board only came up to say which platform to go from a short while before the train was due to depart," she added. "We went down and checked the train and there was nowhere with our names on the seats showing they were reserved. There were also no ramps for people to use, we had a lot of people with buggies and wheelchairs and they had to be physically dragged on to the train in the end.
"I went down to the customer service counter and there was nobody there to help us," Ms Connor continued. "The one man who was there said he couldn't leave his place at the desk and that his supervisor had gone home for the day already. When we got on the train finally everyone was split up, and there were families who ended up being separated, there was six of us on four chairs because people wanted to be with their children, two boys got seperated from their parents, one boy had to sit in a single seat across from his mother because that's all we could find. We had this booked months in advance and had done everything right."
Irish Rail has apologised for the incident and offered to refund the group for the return leg of the journey, and said that there was a carriage booked for the group on the return trip and their names were displayed above the seats and the group got on the wrong carriage. However the group denied this, with Mrs Connor telling the Mayo Advertiser that ÁIRC Mayo secretary Joanne Ryan had checked every carriage on the train before it departed and their names were not displayed over any seats in Hueston Station. She said their names only went up on the seats in Tullamore.
