Fans wait all night for rail tickets

Hundreds of football followers in Kerry hoping to get to Sunday's All-Ireland football semi-final match against Tyrone queued…

Hundreds of football followers in Kerry hoping to get to Sunday's All-Ireland football semi-final match against Tyrone queued all night for train tickets at the railway station in Killarney.

Tickets were being issued on a first come, first served basis from 8 a.m. yesterday, and for most of the football fans the wait was worthwhile.

However, Cllr Sheila Dickson (FF), who was among those queuing from 2 a.m., called on the county board of the GAA and Iarnród Éireann to address the needs of football supporters. The Kerry county board every year called on supporters to attend matches, yet it made little or no provision for their travel needs, she said.

Anyone who had a match ticket should be issued with a train ticket also, Cllr Dickson said.

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"When the ghost trains ran, 30,000 people got to Croke Park. You travelled all night then - but you have to queue all night now for tickets."

The Slane Concert and the All-Ireland were coinciding this weekend, a spokesman for Iarnród Éireann said.

Extra trains that would have been available in the past for special events had been taken up to accommodate the InterCity timetable growth of business and were no longer available.

"The growth in demand for rail travel has been done without any increase in additional rolling stock and as a result we are unable to respond, as we have done in the past, to peak demand for major events," a statement said.