Late-evening rail service is a huge boost to the West

Connectivity for the west of Ireland is the name of the game. Whether in terms of connection to the internet, the speed of getting the goods we produce to their market, or how we travel to the rest of the world and back again, it is the key factor for our future.

Nothing is more important when it comes to our economic – and thus our social – success. You can have all the other advantages, but as Pat O’Donnell explained to me in my recent series, in business you seem peripheral if it takes a long time to get to you.

So, whether it is the Heathrow connection from Ireland West Airport, or work commencing on the Scramoge to Frenchpark section of the N5, every time our level of connectivity to great centres of economic activity increases, it is absolutely in our interest.

If we can increase connectivity, the great things we can offer – in lower cost of living and in the lower price of doing business – come to be very attractive indeed.

So the news that Iarnród Éireann is extending its service range from Dublin to the West is very welcome. From December 10th, travellers from Dublin will be able to take a later 7.35pm service, which will service all stations to the West, arriving in Ballina at 11pm and Westport just a few minutes before.

The new service will see passengers using the 7.35pm Galway service as far as Athlone, changing there for the genuinely new part of the service from Athlone to Ballina/Westport. A few grumbles about changing in Athlone aside, this is really good news and not just because of the obvious convenience.

Up to now, as many of us who have rushed to it will know, the last train leaves Dublin at 6.15pm. And for those of you who know their Dublin, getting to Heuston for 6.15pm is one of the least pleasant experiences of life in the city. Whether snaking down the quays or sardined on the Luas, it is the wrong time to be heading that way – especially when you are in a rush to catch a train. The pressure of that tight time is now off.

For Mayo people in Dublin, it makes Friday evening a much less fraught experience. Anyone who has taken that trip frequently – even in the distant past – will remember it like they can remember the Leaving Cert.

Most will still book the 6.15pm service but – with a fully flexible ticket bought – knowing that they can safely miss it is fantastic. For the working day in Dublin, and the commute from anywhere at rush hour, does not make it easy to make that 6.15pm train.

Whatever day it is, to be able to get down home from Dublin on the later service will be a great help for those who have to attend a funeral the day after; or to visit someone at short notice; or to head home to do one day’s work in Mayo. This time of year, when no one likes doing the round trip in the car, it is especially important. All my Mayo friends up here – a large number – were sharing the news and praising it.

That’s all a definite plus and worthy of praise on its own. But to me, the best impact of this news is for those coming in the other direction, who need to make a day trip from the west to Dublin. The benefit of the option of a later departure time is, of course, obvious for those who are coming up for a medical appointment, or to do some shopping, or for some family business, but where it really matters is on the work front. And especially so when it comes to the possibilities that accrue to our region from remote or hybrid working.

Everyone knows post pandemic that this can be a game changer for our region. It can bring in people who can live and work in the West and allow those from home to return home while maintaining their career. Those people will make their money elsewhere but spend it locally – a type of emigration but without having to move. Connectivity is what makes it possible.

It seems new in the West but it is much less so in Dublin. For up here, there are thousands of people who do work for international companies, who are often London based. Those people routinely head over for day trips to London to meet their clients or colleagues, and do a bit of work on the ground before heading back to Dublin. Sit in Dublin Airport – Terminal 2 especially – early on any work day morning, and you will see them in their droves.

For those who have experienced it, it is a long day – flight out at 6.40am, flight back maybe as late as 9.30pm. It’s a heck of a commute and door to door it is a long and exhausting trip. And yet people who live and work in Dublin do it routinely, some doing it once a week, allowing them to keep their London business, the income from which funds their life in Dublin.

This form of working – where you are mostly working in one location, but occasionally need to come to the main office, or see clients in person – existed long before the pandemic. In Dublin, it has been facilitated by the stream of regular flights from Dublin Airport to London airports, most especially to Heathrow and to a lesser extent London City Airport. It is the life blood of Dublin’s prosperity.

We need more of this in the West. And this is why the news last week was so welcome – because now, if you are a remote worker in the west of Ireland with your clients or employer in Dublin, this new service increases the connectivity in much the same way as all those London flights does for Dublin-based remote workers.

That is especially so when you combine it with the relatively new early morning service to Dublin. If you can manage it, you can now get a train at 5.05am in Ballina and get back there at 11pm. You can be in the city centre of Dublin for 9am and not have to leave the office you are in until well after 6pm. Not long ago, the very best you could do from the train was get to the city centre after 11am and have to leave again at 5pm. For a person in business, that is a serious change to what you can get done in a day, to how many people you can meet, to how much business you can transact. And you can do all the tidy-up work on the train journeys.

What does all this mean? The days of fighting off the closure of services and of entire stations is long gone. The battle now is to extend the service provision. So let’s be sure to use this service, and use it well, the better to create pressure for further and improved services. And, in terms of the debate about the use of trains in our region, while I would prefer to use such investment to increase both connectivity and speed to Dublin, the important question of how to move freight to Rosslare might open at least some of the Western Rail Corridor.

With that said, the message today is well done to Iarnród Éireann on a great new service. Now all we need is to be able to buy a cup of tea!