Angry Nitelink customers who found there were no buses serving Dalkey, Dun Laoghaire, Shankill and Cornelscourt on Wednesday night condemned yesterday Dublin Bus's cancellation of the service without notice. A spokesman for Dublin Bus blamed the sudden disruption of the service on unofficial action by bus drivers because of a reduction in the number of ticket sellers from two to one. "All buses were running as normal apart from those out of Donnybrook garage," he said.
Behind the disruption was the refusal by drivers to accept a manpower reduction for the first three nights of the week, as the company had stipulated, because of the shortage of numbers on the routes on those nights. "The ticket sellers give out the tickets from two Imp buses. It was decided because of the lack of business early in the week only one was required."
The company had no notice of the withdrawal of the service until 10.55 p.m. on Wednesday night, the spokesman said. And it was not confirmed until 11.20 p.m. that one of the garages (Donnybrook) would not be operating the Nitelink.
Two ticket sellers are in place for the rest of the week, he emphasised, so no further problems are anticipated over the weekend.