There were almost a thousand incidents of antisocial behaviour on trains and DARTs last year.
That’s a 54 per cent increase in the likes of assaults, attacks on staff and theft when compared with 2022.
There were 991 incidents on Irish Rail services in 2023, up from 644 in 2022.
The biggest number of reports was around aggressive behaviour with 562 incidents. That compares with 330 in 2022.
Second was fighting at 170 incidents, up from 98 the previous year. While there were 110 assaults, including 21 attacks on Irish Rail staff.
The transport company says there were 10 million more passenger journeys during that time and that it's doubled its spend on security.
Spokesperson is Barry Kenny;
"We've a lot more people travelling with us obviously in 2023 and we've a lot more patrolling and policing and I think that means that we're recording and capturing the true scale of antisocial behaviour more effectively than we have before."
He also said they’ve been successful in cracking down on things like tissue sellers, where groups were placing packets of tissues on seats and anyone who touched them was intimidated into buying the tissues at an inflated price.
