Senator says boarding train without ticket was 'mistake'

By Dara Bradley

Fine Gael Senator Fidelma Healy Eames says the whole episode of her being fined for boarding a train without a ticket is “embarrassing” but she insists it was an honest mistake.  

Senator Healy Eames was issued with a €100 on-the-spot fine on board the early morning Galway to Dublin train on Thursday, after she boarded the train without a valid ticket.

The Oranmore-based Senator said she got on the 6.50am train “in a rush” at Athenry station, without buying a ticket at the ticket office or from the vending machines at the station.

She did so “on the understanding I would be able to purchase a ticket on board”, something she said she had done on two previous occasions.

The reason she didn’t wait to purchase a ticket from the manned office, she said, was because on a previous morning the train departed Athenry four minutes earlier than scheduled and there was no guarantee it wouldn’t depart early again on Thursday.

About an hour into the journey, Senator Healy Eames says she was approached by an officer from the Revenue Protection Unit of Iarnród Éireann, who asked her for identification and a ticket.

She produced her Seanad Éireann ID card and offered to buy a ticket for the journey. The officer told her she could not buy a ticket from him and he issued her with a fine of €100 plus €29.50, the cost of a one-way journey from Athenry to Dublin.

For more, read this week's Connacht Sentinel.