The workers’ organization in Ireland SIPTU is calling the government to reduce the capacity in public transports from 100% amid the growing number of Covid patients in the country. The organization has written to the Transport Minister Eamon Ryan regarding this, pointing out that the full capacity increases the risk of virus transmission to both workers and passengers.
SIPTU is also saying that the current policy of government where cutting the number of vehicles on weekends as a strategy to reduce passengers is not effective.
“While we are aware that the Government is actively considering reducing public transport service levels at weekends we believe this would be a flawed policy as it will only cut the number of vehicles and potentially lead to further overcrowding.” SIPTU Sector Organiser John Murphy said.
Murphy also said that the previous decisions on public transport service levels and vehicle capacity were made by the Department of Transport without consultation with workers or their representatives. SIPTU many times attempted to engage talks with the Minister for Transport concerning these issues over the last 20 months, he added.
“We are now calling on the Minister to engage with us immediately on the introduction of a coherent and safe policy in relation to public transport services.” Murphy said.
SIPTU is one of the largest workers’ union and more than 4,500 workers from the public transport system are SIPTU members.
Source: Journal.ie