Ireland’s eye: Happenings around the Auld Sod

He added that his company have a bungalow for sale in Belcarra for €190,000 when it was originally on the market for €350,000, a staggering price drop of €160,000.

A SOUTH Sligo family paid a whopping €176 to travel by train to Dublin for the All-Ireland football final last month -- more than €100 more than it would have cost for the same journey 24 hours earlier.

The family of two adults and four children were casualties of Iarnrod Eireann's policy of charging increased fares on the Sligo/Dublin line on Fridays and Sundays.

According to Councilor Margaret Gormley, who raised the matter at a meeting of Sligo County Council, if the family had traveled on the Saturday their tickets would have cost them only €73.50.

"If this is not a rip-off, I don't know what is," she stormed, arguing that the train fares should be the same every day of the week.

Speaking to a motion which she tabled calling on Iarnrod Eireann to discontinue the practice of charging increased fares on Fridays and Sundays, she pointed out that the policy had been introduced at a time when demand outstripped availability, but there were now eight trains every day on the Sligo/Dublin line so the argument for increased fares no longer existed.

Gormley revealed that similar fares on the Wexford line had been discontinued four years ago, and she asked why Sligo rail users should be discriminated against. She called on the government, which has invested huge money upgrading the Sligo/Dublin line, to chastise the rail company for this practice.

She was supported by Councilor Michael Fleming, who said the increased fares were "not fair play."

Gormley's motion seeking to have the increased Friday and Sunday fares abolished was unanimously adopted by the council.

Abuser Walks Free

THE head of the Kerry Rape and Sexual Abuse center has harshly criticized the leniency of the sentence imposed on writer Desmond Hogan, who received a two-year suspended sentence for sexually assaulting a Kerry teen with special needs in 2006.

Vera O'Leary, who is also chairperson of the Rape Crisis Network of Ireland, said she was "gravely concerned" that anyone who had committed such an offence would be released onto the streets.

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Nster.com