DUBLIN BUS is clamping down on smoking on buses and has significantly increased the number of people it is sending forward for prosecution this year.
Last Tuesday 56 people appeared in Dublin District Court on charges relating to smoking on Dublin Bus vehicles. Of those, 28 were successfully prosecuted and fined from between €100 and €200, plus costs.
This compares with 74 people sent forward for prosecution for the whole of 2007.
Already this year 66 people have been summonsed to court for smoking on Dublin Bus vehicles.
People under 18 years are dealt with separately. Dublin Bus liaises with a school or some other relevant authority when teenagers are caught smoking on buses.
The company has also increased the number of inspectors policing the smoking ban.
Previously, one plainclothes inspector boarded buses while a uniformed inspector followed in a car with a driver.
Now two plainclothes inspectors board buses, and they are backed up by two uniformed inspectors and a driver.
In areas where there may be a risk to the safety of inspectors a Garda presence accompanies the inspection team.
Dublin Bus is also fitting an automated message on all buses, warning passengers that it is illegal to smoke on board.
More than one-third of buses have now been fitted with this message, which plays every 15 minutes.
The company is also identifying areas where smoking on buses is a problem and is targeting those areas with spot checks by inspectors. Some 16 supervisors have been trained to work in this area.
“We want to hammer home the message that this behaviour is not acceptable on our buses,” said Brendan Cushen from Dublin Bus’s media and communications department.
