Why The 2009 CIE Fare Hikes Are a Slap In The Face To Irish People

CIE Train

Well, it’s another new year, another set of fare hikes for CIE. Everything’s going up, as usual: Bus, train and Luas users are all going to have to cough up that little bit extra for the luxury of these public services. Of course, this is nothing new – it’s been happening every single new year for at least the last decade. It’s as regular as the services themselves are not.

During the Celtic Tiger years, the excuse used by CIE for putting up prices was rising fuel costs, the added pressure on services to cater for immigrant commuter workers to the country, etc etc. Well, we can see now that those excuses were a load of rubbish – the workers are leaving Ireland in droves, fuel costs are at their lowest in years, and yet the fares still make their annual leap. Not only that, but many routes are going to have their services reduced, and some will be cut altogether.

This time, the explanation is that the CIE have made massive operating losses in the last year, due to a drop in demand for services.

So, let’s be clear: This company’s reaction to making operating losses is to increase fares. Now, I’m no business acolyte, but I am familiar with the concept of common sense. And there is no common sense in CIE’s explanation. It goes against even the most basic rules of commercial interaction. You attract customers by lowering the cost to them, right? But no, this insular, state-mollycoddled service can keep putting up  fares while issuing statements that defy logic outright. Why? Because they have a monopoly. Because so many people have no choice but to use them. (And like all good monopolies, CIE hate criticism. A few years back, I wrote an article for a college magazine that lambasted their quality of service. CIE promptly contacted the college’s students union and informed them that if they continued publishing this type of disparagement, measures would have to be taken. Legal action was not directly threatened, but the state of affairs was made very clear.)

CIE Logo

It’s actually cheaper now to run a small car on a week to week basis than it is to use the bus regularly. Certainly, for longer trips, there is no comparison. The fact is that in a world suffering an environmental crisis, where almost every other first-world nation is actively encouraging its citizens to get out of the car and use public transport, Ireland is swimming furiously against the tide. Increased fares, less routes and no improvement on what is, let’s be honest, a shite service…. what are they playing at? Our Government seems determined to put more people on the already-congested roads.

Also, despite CIE’s claims that they are hemorrhaging customers, we still see comments and headlines like these:

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/letters/cie-fare-hikes-cant-be-justified-1595255.html

or

http://www.tribune.ie/news/article/2008/sep/28/irish-rail-enough-empty-trains-to-get-to-the-moon/

in which we see a glimpse of the astonishingly wasteful practices of the company. When you read reports that say “…almost 20% of the empty mileage is attributable to Iarnród Éireann’s refusal to decentralise drivers to commuter centres…”, it’s difficult to feel sympathy for the huge losses that they manage to incur. These people have no idea how to run a streamlined business, and have no incentive to learn, either. Why should they? They know that no matter how much they run the company into debt (and the national transport infrastructure into the ground) that they will be bailed out in the new year. The commuter will pay the price, simply because they have to. No heads will roll, no individual will be held accountable, and no competition will be allowed to show them up for the shambles they are.

And all of this is occurring in the most difficult economic climate the country has seen in decades, where people are struggling to even find work to pay off their debts, and in which Fianna Fail responded to a national financial crisis by rolling out a Sheriff-Of-Nottingham budget that specifically targeted the middle classes, students and the elderly – the people least likely to fight back. But these would-be-victims surprised the whole country by organising their collective anger and making a difference. Specifically, the ageing population of the country took to the streets in their droves because of the withdrawal of free medical cards. Rarely have I felt more proud to be Irish than when I read reports of government ministers being shouted down by OAPs who had had enough and were not going to take it anymore. Fianna Fail got very scared and made budget backtracks faster than anyone had anticipated.

OAP Protests

But that was a rare high point in a situation that has seen Fianna Fail try to claw money back from the most vulnerable; the very money that the government wasted in the first place and continues to waste. Instead of blatant theft, the government has simply adopted a strategy of “testing the waters”. They see how far they can go before people freak out and protest. And yes, the OAPs and students put up a fight, but look at what wasn’t protested or repealed: A new ‘levy’ of between 1 and 2% on all incomes. Increased air travel tax, now a huge 10 Euros per flight (over 300km).  Alcohol tax is up there with the highest in Europe, and general VAT rates went up. So, when huge crowds of Irish shoppers crossed the border to the North to do their shopping with the much fairer UK rates, they were rebuked by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, who said:

“When you shop in Northern Ireland, you’re paying Her Majesty’s taxes, you’re not paying taxes to the state that you live in.”

That’s right, folks – it’s your patriotic duty to get robbed. Forget about the myriad bank executives who receive little more than a slap on the wrist for deeply irresponsible – and often, illegal – financial activities. Forget the black hole of public funding that is the Health Service Executive. Forget the fact that Hoffa-esque unions have held this country to ransom for decades, and that noone in government has the guts to do a thing about it. Forget all that, because once you cross the border to actually get value for your money, you become a veritable dissident.

Funnily enough, “patriotic duty” was also the weak reasoning behind Fianna Fail’s campaign to get the Lisbon Treaty passed. Rather than present any cogent arguments, they told the country that it was our civic obligation to (a) not ask questions and (b) tick the ‘yes’ box. This “just shut up and do it” attitude extended to the point where Cowen admitted that he had not read the entire text of the Treaty.

And yet, in this catalogue of monumentally selfish and cavalier actions, the worst still seems to me the CIE price hike. Why? Because it targets the people who have no choice. Because CIE can’t come up with a single good excuse for their actions. Because every other country in Europe has a transport system that is at least somewhat affordable and dependable. Because, as someone told me the other day, the ticket machine in Cork Bus Station does not accept 50 Euro notes – and often, neither do the drivers. Because it’s an insult those of us who do our bit for the environment. Because it exemplifies the quagmire of bureaucracy and non-responsibility that has helped send this country into a recession. Because this shambles of a company, this paradigm of wastefulness and arrogance, continues to exist only because it exploits the people who have no choice but to use it. Worst, because it seems the most like a  slap in the face.

How can a government expect the citizens of a country to do anything for them in the name of ‘Patriotic Duty’ when there is so little patriotism being shown by the government themselves?

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Irish Transport Prices Go Up AGAIN

I heard on the news this morning that CIE are putting up the prices of all of their services (Bus Eireann, Irish Rail, Luas, Dublin Bus) yet again. This has become something of an annual tradition in Ireland.

The media has been filled with callers and voxpops from commuters who say that these costs are totally unjustified. Why? Because there has been no improvement in the actual service.

At the same time, pay rises for managers in many semi-state companies (including CIE) have been announced. These are the CEOs of organizations rife with needless bureaucracy, “jobs for the boys” and virtually no accountability on anyone’s part. Since there is no real competition in the market (due to government monopolization and the stranglehold of the unions), there are no standards for service whatsoever. Drivers are often rude and abusive.

The buses are so filthy and the service so bad that when Aircoach (an independent company) began their route from Cork to Dublin / Dublin Airport, they reported that for the first few weeks, many consumers repeatedly asked if these were private VIP buses. Irish commuters were unfamiliar with regular, punctual buses, fair prices, courteous drivers and buses that weren’t covered in shit.

The other week, my sister got the train home from Cork to Kerry. She decided to take the train to get home faster, since the bus can take up to 2 hours. Guess how long the train took? 2 and 1/2 hours. That’s right, it took a half hour longer than the bus. That’s a train versus a bus, folks. That’s tantamount to defying the laws of physics (and, needless to say, it cost more).

Why does this situation persist? I think it’s a combination of two things. Firstly, it’s our government’s complete lack of any guts. They refuse to take on the unions, because the unions can a) lose them lots of votes and b) hold the entire public-transport dependent population of Ireland hostage whenever they want. Secondly, it’s the Irish public’s dislike of standing up for themselves. As bizarre as this may sound, we seem to have a collective inferiority complex. When was the last time you saw someone talking back to a bullying bus driver or rail conductor? It never happens. We grumble and call up Joe Duffy, but what good is that on a practical level?

But the semi-state workers are well able to stand up for themselves, oh yes. One man alone can cause a strike to happen and disrupt the travel arrangements of thousands. Don’t believe me? It happened yesterday. That’s right, the day before CIE prices went up and CIE pay rises were announced, a CIE employee managed to bring the rail line between the two largest cities in Ireland to a standstill because – and get this – he asked for “a premium shift payment for specific inspection duties — and he launched unofficial action when that higher payment rate was denied.”

What??

Are they employing children? You don’t get what you want, so you can disrupt the plans of 2,000 people? If that was any sort of real company, that employee would have been fired on the spot. But no. Instead, this whining maggot is mollycoddled, and to hell with everyone else who is depending on the service to get to work, see their families, get hospital treatment etc.

This is bureaucracy gone mad, and symptomatic of a larger problem – we have start standing up for ourselves.