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Updated 22:54
BAD NEWS FOR passengers: the National Transport Authority has announced fare increases for buses, trains and Luas from next week.
Fares for monthly and annual tickets on Dublin Bus, Bus Éireann, Iarnród Éireann and Luas will increase from 1 November, while fares for cash tickets, Leap Cards and pre-paid tickets will go up from 1 December.
Dublin Bus cash fares will rise by between 15 cent and 25 cent depending on the length of the journey, while Bus Éireann cash tickets will increase by up to 9 per cent.
Pre-paid tickets will increase by between 5 and 7 per cent on Bus Éireann and by approximately 10 per cent on all Dublin Bus pre-paid tickets.
Luas cash tickets will rise by between 3.4 per cent and 8.3 per cent, with single peak-time tickets on both the Red and Green lin rising from €1.70 to €1.80.
The head of the NTA Gerry Murphy said that the fare increases were needed as passenger numbers dropped and fuel costs grew. He said that the hikes would help “protect service delivery at a time of reduced incomes for the operators”.
The price hikes had been widely anticipated after the Government reduced its payments to the State-subsidised companies in Budget 2014.
Dublin Bus cash fares will rise from €1.65 to €1.80 for a journey of 1-3 stages, and from €2.15 to €2.35 for journeys of 4-7 stages – an increase of 9.3 per cent.
Fares for journeys of 7-13 stages will rise from €2.40 to €2.60 – an increase of 8.3 per cent – while journeys over 13 stages will rise from €2.80 to €3.05.
NTA boss Gerry Murphy encouraged passengers to use Leap Cards where possible as the fares as significantly cheaper than cash fares.
He also said that the national public transport companies need to stabilise their financial situation quickly in order to minimise service cuts and return the companies to a stable financial footing.
“Cost reduction programmes have been put in place by the operators, but these have taken time to implement, and costs have not fallen to the same extent as the subsidy and revenue base,” said Murphy.
“Public transport fare increases have been necessary in recent years as the [NTA] has had to protect the services as much as possible,” he said.
The fares will be in place for 12 months.
First published at 11:57
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Boo! – Apple have done away with the Irish cailín (pale skin, red hair) who used to represent many Irish women – now we’ll have to choose between a blonde or a brunette. Bring back the redhead!
Tiocfaidh ar la.
Does that mean that only those people who have installed this will see the new emoji ?
Yes is the answer. This is an Irish flag test:
The flags work as special control letters representing the abbreviation for countries. On Android phones they usually show up as just the control letters, so, as always, an Irish flag can be displayed but only as a blue “IE”, not an actual flag. The system (at least before lollipop, not sure if its changed) never supported the actual flags but would just show the control letters instead.
WhatsApp does that too, but only if it encounters a combination it doesn’t have a flag for.
Any for android?
It just requires characters U+1F1EE and U+1F1EA to be entered in sequence ( a special “I” and a special “E”) but the system won’t display them as a flag. Apple hasn’t really added a new character. Just the ability to correctly recognise the combination.
Android, as of 4.4 anyway, doesn’t display any of these combinations as flags (not even U and S). Just as the control letters that make them up. Applications on android that don’t use the system emojis (WhatsApp and Facebook messenger for instance) may add support sooner, since they both support flags
I like that they’re in the kind of pop up menu thing so you don’t spend ages scrolling. Nice one.
I always thought the Irish flag would be a lot nicer without the orange
Go back to Limerick
The davedunne comment above is not me. It is a dam imposter. I am flattered all the same. I in all honesty don’t give a bollix about flag’s.
The davedunne comment above is not me. It is a dam imposter. I am flattered all the same. I in all honesty don’t give a bollix about flag’s.
Fine gael don’t approve ..
Anyone else not have the option of downloading the new update?
Note to self:
Block Brian Tong
Excited to see the Irish Tricolor being represented.
I would be more excited when my Android Galaxy S6 starts representing my flag!
What kind of phone do you have?
Ireland/…Ivory Coast flag
All I can say is
Noooooo. Fail, all the emojis didn’t show up
What a lot of
Erik just point g out he has the new S6
˙˙˙sᴉɥʇ pɐǝɹ uɐɔ noʎ ɟᴉ sᴉ ʇI
Why don’t android phones have flag emojis?
Flag on WhatsApp is Ivory Coast not Irish
have your say