The great Easter Bank Holiday weekend getaway has begun, with hundreds of thousands of people on the move by air, sea, road and rail.
On one of the busiest holiday weekends of the year, the number of air passengers travelling to and from airports is up on last year.
According to Aer Rianta, more than 340,000 passengers are expected to travel through Dublin, Cork and Shannon Airports over the course of the weekend, starting yesterday until Monday.
More than 290,000 passengers will use Dublin Airport during this period, which is an increase of 9 per cent over Easter 2002. Approximately 2,250 flights will arrive and depart during this time, including 185 charters catering for holiday-makers heading to sun destinations.
Cork Airport expects to handle more than 24,000 passengers over the holiday weekend, a 5 per cent increase over the same period last year. More than 26,000 passengers are expected to travel through Shannon Airport, which is a 2 per cent increase over 2002.
Aer Rianta advised passengers to give themselves plenty of time to reach their respective airports in order to comply with check-in and security regulations. It also reminded passengers to remove all sharp objects from hand luggage.
Ferry services are also running at full capacity. Stena Line will carry 45,000 passengers and 9,000 vehicles on its Dún Laoghaire-Holyhead, Dublin Port-Holyhead and Rosslare-Fishguard routes, during the period beginning yesterday until Tuesday.
Irish Ferries is expecting 42,000 passengers and 8,200 vehicles on its Dublin and Rosslare routes to Britain.
On its Rosslare-to-France route there will be approximately 5,500 passengers and 1,100 vehicles making the crossings.
More than 3,000 passengers and approximately 1,400 vehicles will travel on Swansea-Cork Ferries route from yesterday until Monday.
People will be moving around the State, too. Around 300,000 people will travel inter-city on Iarnród Éireann from yesterday until Monday.
Today, there will be normal services and a Sunday service will operate on Monday.
Tara Street station in Dublin will be closed for the four days of the Easter weekend. At Connolly Station, Dublin, there will be engineering works causing short delays to some services.
Bus Éireann expects to carry up to 100,000 passengers on Expressway and provincial bus services throughout the holiday weekend.
Today, services will operate normally.
On Easter Day, normal Sunday services will operate but some routes which normally cater for returning weekend travellers will be cancelled.
On Monday there will be a Sunday service, with extra routes to cater for people returning to main centres on Monday evening.
The Dublin Bus Nitelink service will not operate tonight but will resume on Saturday and Sunday.