BUS AND RAIL services are set to be curtailed in areas considered “black spots” for anti-social behaviour after members of the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) passed an emergency motion.

The proposal was backed unanimously by delegates at the union’s biennial conference in Cork today.

It will see services withdrawn from problem areas from 14 October in the run up to Halloween.

However the NBRU also advised that it cannot guarantee that services will run to timetable before that date due to “the almost daily occurrence of assaults across our transport system”.

The union is calling for a Garda Public Transport Unit to be established due to an “alarming” increase in assaults on staff and a spike in anti-social behaviour.

The union’s General Secretary, Dermot O’Leary, said it is a source of “great disappointment” to NBRU members that they have to resort to withdrawing and curtailing bus and rail services.

He called on the Government to take action as “good decent Citizens lose out”.