Madam - In your edition of August 17th, Barry Kenny of Iarnród Éireann express the hope that drunken behaviour on board a train was an isolated incident. I can inform him that, sadly, this is far from being the case.
My most recent experience - one of many - occurred on August 13th on the 11 a.m. train from Dublin to Galway. This journey was made extremely unpleasant for tourists, families with young children and professional people trying to work by groups of youths consuming huge quantities of alcohol, most of which seemed to be bought in the train's bar.
The general rowdiness became increasingly intimidating and lavatories were soon unusable, the floors having been treated as urinals.
You would have thought that, with the majority of train passengers mercifully being neither drunk nor disorderly, their interests should come first, even at the risk of some people having to survive for three hours without alcoholic drink and Iarnród Éireann having to manage without the profit from selling drink on trains.
I can't see any justification at all for selling alcohol on trains bars or allowing it to be consumed on board. If the will was there, Iarnród Éireann could eliminate drunkenness on trains in an instant by introducing a blanket ban rather than fudging the issue with talk of "isolated incidents". - Yours, etc.
ANN RODEN,
Cashel,
Co Galway.