Irish Rail have today announced the decreased capacity of many services along with changes to rail fares on certain services.

Irish Rail have developed 'Commuter Zones' in Dublin, where ticket fares vary in price.

Changes to fares and tickets have seen the elimination of Student and Adult weekly tickets in certain 'commuter zones' in Dublin, and the reduction of carriages on some Limerick to Dublin services.

The Leinster Express / Laois Live spoke to Irish Rail to clarify what these changes mean for Laois commuters.

Though fares will increase or decrease in certain commuter zones, there are no fare changes in the intercity Cork/Limerick to Dublin Heuston services.

Pictured: An Irish Rail sign at Ballybrophy train station. Photo: The Leinster Express

"Fares in Dublin City Zone 1 are largely unchanged, zone 2 mostly increased, and zones 3 and 4 decreased," a spokesperson for Irish Rail explained.

"However, these are for journeys entirely within the Dublin Commuter Zone. There are no fare changes on Cork/Limerick to Heuston, or affecting Portlaoise customers at all (other than the Luas add-on fare which was €1.40 now being eliminated – it will now be zero)."

 Adult and student weekly tickets have been removed within the Dublin Commuter Zone only, with no effect to the Intercity tickets on the Portlaoise lines. 

"Where the adult and student weekly tickets have been removed in Dublin Commuter Zone, this will be replaced with Leap-based zonal tickets or capping (Zone 1 only)."

 The Leinster Express / Laois Live provided Irish Rail with a photograph taken recently of an over-capacity service to Dublin Heuston from Limerick, where many passengers were left standing in the train's corridors.

This service is one of six that will see six carriages reduced to four.

When presented with this information and questioned on the carriage reductions, Irish Rail had this response:

"Reductions in train size have been implemented on a limited number of specific services over the coming months.  This is to facilitate maintenance and other works on a number of trains during that time, to enable us to deliver a better service and maximise fleet availability from autumn onwards," they said.

"Current demand levels have been analysed and reviewed to identify trains where a reduction in capacity is possible.  However, we will continue to keep demand levels under review to ensure sufficient capacity is being provided on individual services."

Many intercity routes have seen 15-20 minute delays within the last few months, leaving many Laois commuters standing on the platform, and late for work and appointments.

We asked what efforts are being made on behalf of Irish Rail to reduce regularly reported delays to intercity services.

"We are continuously working to improve punctuality performance, and are seeing a consistent improvement through 2025 so far, after what was a challenging period after our timetable changes in August 2024," the spokesperson responded.

"One of the reasons for the reduced capacity is to ensure we can complete maintenance programmes on our fleet to improve reliability, and in turn improve punctuality of our services," they finished.

Read More: Iarnród Éireann cuts train capacity on Laois trains