Sir, - Mrs Grove-Annesley`s points (August 6th) about visitors arriving into Dun Laoghaire early on Sunday mornings should be hammered into the foreheads of those who claim to be at the helm of the ship of Irish tourism.
In the dim, distant past before the DART, our inefficient and slow old transport company, CIE, had a spur line which ran alongside ships and could take passengers almost directly from the vessel. With the arrival of DART it was deemed technologically impossible, apparently, to electrify this small but very valuable nod in the direction of transport integration; so we had to make do with a Dickensian arrangement which required passengers to get themselves up to street level, cross a footbridge to purchase a rail ticket, recross the bridge and descend to trackside to await the electronic marvel which is DART. Car drivers do not fare much better. Returning on the HSS last month we were reminded of Ireland's existence as a state of mind by the sheer bedlam which greeted us on disembarkation. Some eight lanes of eager motorists pouring forth from the technological marvel of the HSS then found themselves having to miraculously squeeze into two lanes heading in opposite directions. At the top of each of the two escape roads there are traffic signals whose timings do not alter to permit the rapid escape of the bemused foreign motorists. - Yours, etc.,
Billy Fleming,
Tallaght, Dublin 24.