Sir, - Recently, on a short trip home, I used the new Aerdart service to get to my parents' house in Blackrock. I found the Aerdart bus clean and comfortable and the driver, a real gentleman, couldn't have been kinder or nicer.
But why on earth was Howth Junction chosen as the drop-off point? When I got off the bus, I was told to go up a slope and I'd find the platforms. I did - all three of them, the one in the middle, accessible by a metal bridge. Sign-posting was virtually non-existent, and the electronic signs announcing the arrival of the trains could only be read when you were standing on the platform concerned.
I did not know which of the three platforms to stand on, so I decided on the one in the middle which had tracks on each side. Luckily I guessed right, but it was just a guess.
Having lugged my bags up and then down the very steep metal bridge (totally unsuitable for heavy suitcases, never mind wheelchairs) I then found that the next DART would be 40 minutes in coming. And this was at one in the afternoon!
Luckily I'm not exactly a tourist, but it was far from being an efficient welcome. I hope something has been done about the signposting in the meantime, though how Dublin Bus and Irish Rail imagine that metal bridges and suitcases will ever be a winning combination is beyond me. As for the "wheelchair friendly" buses, they are not much use if they only get you to a very wheelchair-unfriendly DART station.
Unless the service improves, I for one will be telling any potential tourists to avoid it like the plague. - Yours, etc.,
D. Carey, Oude Graanmarkt, Brussels, Belgium.