‘I never know when the Dart will arrive. And Irish Rail doesn’t seem to know either’

Every weekday I get the Dart into work, which I’ve done for close on a gazillion years. And while this isn’t a qualification of any sort – I’ve no idea how they schedule the trains – I have enough experience as a traveller to know when something has changed. Even when something is wrong.
I’d like to say: this is a typical day. Except there is no typical day. Instead, there’s a range of possibilities. Say I’m aiming to catch a Dart that is scheduled to leave my local station at 11am. I arrive on time, but the digital platform sign says the train isn’t due for another six minutes. Sometimes there’s a station announcement saying there’s a delay. More usually, there isn’t.
But when we get to 11:06, the digital display still says the Dart will arrive in six minutes. It might then start counting down: five minutes, four minutes, then pop back up to six minutes again. Sometimes, this train will disappear off the sign altogether, but more usually, the Dart scheduled to arrive at 11am will arrive somewhere between 11:00 and 11:25.
I’m not writing this because it’s happened to me a few times and I’m vexed about it. An urban rail system is a complex thing to operate, and can occasionally go whoopsie. I completely accept that. I love the Dart: which is why I’ve held off writing this. I’ve held off for the best part of a year. But in that year, that train has turned up on time no more than a handful of times. The information on the digital sign, the schedule on the Irish Rail app and website, are no more than serving suggestions. I never know when that train will arrive. And Irish Rail doesn’t seem to know either.
As you may know, they changed the schedule during the summer, then had to change it back when it proved to be a disaster. The entire system appears to be under such massive strain that it starts to look like chaos: and the strain, I assume, comes from trying to cater for an ever-increasing number of commuters – rightly encouraged to leave their cars at home – but without a sufficient increase in resources to do it.
But this is not unique to Irish Rail. Housing, hospitals, etc: there’s a long list of things we need more of; which we knew we’d need more of years ago. Yet somehow, we have been chronically unable to do anything about it.
A few weeks ago – at one of those sucking-up-to-the-Americans events at the US embassy – Taoiseach Simon Harris made the startling revelation that this lack of planning and investment might damage Ireland’s competitiveness: not, you’ll notice, that it makes life a misery for countless people already living here. His big solution was to create a Department of Infrastructure.
A new government department. Yay!
I wish I could tell you why we have been so bad at planning for the future, and why we seem to have arrived at a point where every resource we have seems squeezed dry. But I don’t know. I suspect Simon Harris doesn’t know either. I don’t think any of them do: politicians and civil servants preside over these multiple crises and are secretly baffled at why they are happening. And their only solution is to do more of what they’ve been doing already.
[ Irish Rail sends 37 senior officials to Berlin trade fair as it faces anger over delays caused by new timetablesOpens in new window ]
The problem is no doubt complex and multifactorial. But I’d guess that a lack of imagination is part of it, along with a lack of courage. In public life, we tend to conflate responsibility with blame: and if there’s a problem, no one wants to be blamed.
That builds a timidity into the system, prompting ever-increasing layers of consultation and expert reports and committee hearings: spreading the potential blame around. No one wants to screw up public projects, yet a process where no one takes responsibility seems to have exactly that effect.