A WHEELCHAIR USER who became trapped on a train at Dublin’s Connolly Station has made a formal complaint to Irish Rail.
Gerard Gallagher was left alone on a Sligo-Connolly train after all the other passengers disembarked.
With no Irish Rail staff available to work the wheelchair ramp for him Gallagher was left trapped in his mobility scooter on the train.
Shortly afterwards the power was cut to the train and Gallagher was left in complete darkness without even his phone, which had died in the absence of charging sockets in his carriage.
“It was the first time in many years that I felt completely disabled,” Gallagher said in a statement on his Facebook page.
I had no way of contacting anyone. I was completely alone and no-one knew where I was.
Gallagher has lodged a formal complaint with Irish Rail on what he says is ‘an important equality issue’.
Spokesman for Irish Rail Barry Kenny told TheJournal.ie that what happened to Mr. Gallagher was “unacceptable”.
We have apologised to him for the incident and the distress caused. Our employees are proud to assist the transport needs of mobility and sensory impaired customers across the country on a daily basis.
We are investigating the incident in full to establish what went wrong, and to ensure that nobody has to experience such an incident again.
Meanwhile, deputy CEO of the Disability Federation of Ireland (DFI) Allen Dunne has described the situation as a “wake up call” for Irish Rail and has called on them to improve the quality of their disability services.
“This must have been very frightening for Gerard and it is unacceptable that it happened,” he told TheJournal.ie.
We hope that this situation will be a wakeup call for Irish Rail to pay due care and attention to passengers with disabilities and ensure that nothing like this happens again.
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