Railway Safety Bill 2026: Second Stage
Dail Éireann — 2026-10-01
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Mark Wall (LAB), Kildare South

I welcome the Minister to the House. I want to take the opportunity to discuss the Railway Safety Bill 2026. Rail safety is becoming a massive issue for commuter counties like Kildare. In particular, it is impacting commuter towns like Athy, Newbridge, Kildare town and Monasterevin. Hundreds of people have contacted me this week alone outlining their concerns regarding Irish Rail. The majority of these concerns were primarily due to overcrowding on a number of Irish Rail services on a number of lines, including the Waterford, Limerick and Portlaoise lines. This also extends to the Luas services, which Kildare South commuters are using as a means of onward travel into Dublin city centre. Overcrowding on Irish Rail services is presenting a very serious health and safety issue for these commuters. People are standing in aisles, by entrances and near bike racks just to get on the train. They are packed in like sardines. I have had a number of constituents share what can only be described as horror stories of overcrowding on Irish Rail services. Only last week I highlighted one case of an elderly couple who were extremely unsteady on their feet, standing in between carriages because there were no seats left.
I want to highlight to the House more examples from my constituents. Katie said:
I'm currently writing this email to you standing in the middle of a coach on the 5.25 Limerick to Heuston train that I boarded in Kildare town. The train serves enough towns including Portlaoise, Portarlington and Monasterevin. Upon boarding the train, there was already a significant number of people standing. The next train leaving Kildare town is 7.23, serving Newbridge and Naas also. It is very likely that the same scenario as the one I find myself in will be presenting itself on that train.
Jamie, a student commuting from Kildare town to DCU said:
Every morning I get the 6.44 train to Newbridge, then the 6.56 train to Drumcondra. This morning, like every morning, I witnessed something extremely dangerous. By the time the train got to Hazelhatch and Celbridge the train was rammed. No one could get on or off. No one could move. By the time I got to Drumcondra, it took me ages to get off the train, going past multiple people.
Shane, another commuter travelling from Newbridge to Pearse Street, said:
The train is 70% full leaving Newbridge. By the time it leaves Sallins, it's standing room only and then it has to stop at Hazelhatch, Adamstown, Clondalkin and Cherry Orchard, all of which are busy, as they also have exceptional population growth. The trains are unsafe. Most of the time with people standing down the aisles. Even people trying to get off at times can be problematic, as there's often 20 people between them and the door, and nobody wants to step off for fear of losing their little spot on the carpet.
Like me, the Minister is young enough that standing for half an hour to Heuston is okay but many of the trains coming through Newbridge start much earlier and much farther afield and have frail and vulnerable people who are forced to travel into Dublin for hospital appointments. It is not uncommon to see these people precariously make their way along the overcrowded walkways and have to step over people sitting on the floor, etc., while the train is moving, just to get to the toilet. Often, the toilets are in such a state they have to go farther along the train. It is also not uncommon to see frail and vulnerable people trying to get on a train at Newbridge and then not managing to get a seat, because people do not offer or because they simply cannot make it to seats to ask somebody to move. It is only a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt because of all this overcrowding.
As other colleagues have done, I raised these concerns with Irish Rail recently and was extremely disappointed with its response to addressing this issue. I was informed that health and safety on Irish Rail services is done by self regulation, according to the organisation. That is not an acceptable answer to addressing the serious health and safety concerns on rail services and is simply not good enough.
What does self-regulation mean? I was told that we only had a train driver on these trains and that nobody was operating from the stations. Is it up to the person getting onto a train to self-regulate when they see a crowd on it? Somebody might explain what exactly is meant by that comment. The Bill should address this immediate concern as it is unlikely that commuters are going to see any expansion of frequency or capacity on the Waterford line until 2027, and hopefully no later, which means the only other solution is to continue with overcrowding.
The Commission for Railway Regulation is the national safety authority charged with overseeing safety on Ireland's rail services. It is mentioned throughout the Bill before us. Do many in the House know exactly what this commission is? I will, as my party colleague and spokesperson has said, work with the Minister to bring real measures that will address the poor and inadequate health and safety provision on our rail services to ensure that commuters get the proper public service they are praying for and which so many of them need.
The Bill is about rail safety. It is about addressing crashes and injuries after they happen. I am putting it to the Minister that we have to deal with these situations before accidents happen, and I ask that the Bill in its entirety set out to address this and the overcrowding for commuters along the three lines I mentioned because it could come too late and nobody in this House wants such a thing to happen.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-10-01/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-10-05T01:01:00+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-10-01