A PD senator says he has seen a confidential CIÉ report that admits to poor performance records on the DART and Connolly-to-Maynooth lines, but Iarnród Éireann has rejected the claims as "simplistic nonsense".
Senator Tom Morrissey - the PD spokesperson on transport - said anecdotal evidence regarding the poor service provided by CIÉ "is now borne out in these internal figures produced by the company".
He said the report admits to a 78 per cent performance record on its DART service and a 62 per cent record on its Connolly-to-Maynooth line.
"As commuters have always suspected, CIÉ is simply failing to offer value for money. It is hardly surprising the company is trying to keep these figures a secret," he said.
"Why should commuters abandon their cars in favour of a rail network where only 6 out of every 10 trains from Connolly to Maynooth leave on time? Or opt for a DART service, which has a 78 per cent on-time departure record?", Mr Morrissey said.
But Iarnród Éireann spokesman Mr Barry Kenny said Senator Morrissey's claims seemed to be based on one page of a report carried out over a four-week period when some services were delayed due to subsidence.
He said that last year DART trains achieved a 92 per cent punctuality record within ten minutes, 3 per cent short of a 95 per cent target. Suburban services achieved a 90 per cent record in 2002, he added.
"We are the only urban transit system in Europe that uses ever available signal slot at peak times," Mr Kenny said. "We have a very creditable punctuality record and we hope to improve that over time with investment".
