Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What incident sparked the discussion about anti-social behavior?
Fiona Gray is on the line. Fiona, tell me what happened yesterday.
Hi Ciarán. My daughter, who is 16, started her first little summer job on Monday out in Talla. And she was getting the Lewis back into town to meet her daddy. He works in the courts. And she got assaulted, attacked by two individuals. They got on just after her. I don't know what stop they got on. She started her journey on the very first piece at Talla, the square.
And the two individuals, the female, there was a female and the male, started shouting abuse at my daughter. The girl seemingly said to her, I assume, partner, her boyfriend, don't be looking at her or I'll fucking kill you. Excuse the language. So then the girl started throwing coke at my daughter and spat at her through the can of coke.
One time my daughter was trying to get help and nobody seemed to help her on the Lewis. So she had pressed the emergency stop button and nothing happened. She'd seen the number to text message, which she did. She said, I'm on the Lewis 319, whatever the number was, I need help.
Chapter 2: How did the daughter feel during the incident on the Lewis?
So nothing came to her, no help came to her. She was afraid to lift her phone to her, you know, to make a phone call because... She thought that the phone would be grabbed off her and she in the process then was texting my husband the facts of the event. So he was telling her to stay on the Lewis. You know, have you pressed the emergency button? Where are you? What stop are you at?
It happened just before the Red Cow. So he met her then up at the Houston. She got off at Houston, very distressed. Nobody came to help her. The emergency stop buttons in place don't work. Nothing back from the Lewis. And I'm just appalled to think that a 16-year-old who is starting out in life is subjected to this. How can we as adults manage, you know, safety measures on public transport?
So... And listen, I think people will understand, you know, the language you use given what you've gone through and everything. But... Sorry, before we ask about this in any more detail, how is she? This was only yesterday. How is she?
She's OK. Was very distressed getting off the Lewis, upset. The guards came to her rescue with my husband. They came up from the courts. My husband's a barrister in the courts, they're the criminal courts. And they were very good to her, very reassuring. Positivity, you know, this can happen. It can happen lots of people. It'll probably hopefully never happen again.
Encouraging her at the same time as well that, you know, this shouldn't infringe on you from taking public transport. And again, we reiterated that to her last night. Actually, the weekend, myself and my husband took a dummy run up to where she was getting the Lewis 2 to make sure, you know, the stops and be familiar with the area. And, you know, it's just unacceptable.
I work where I work and we have protocols, safety protocols in place. My husband has safety protocols. I'm sure you do too, Ciarán, in RTE. Nothing works on the Lewis. And if my daughter did what she did, followed the instructions, some help should have come. So this needs to be fixed.
The system is broken. So she's on a... This is a big moment for her and for you, obviously, as well, the first summer job and going off on her own, the little bit of independence. So probably a few butterflies in the stomach
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Chapter 3: What safety measures are in place on public transport?
Anyway, was there?
Yeah. And I went on the Lewis with her on Monday morning. I said, rather than drive the car to where she was starting her new job, I said, no, we'll both take the Lewis together. She said, no, Mammy, it's OK. I'm happy enough because I did the dummy run at the weekend. And, you know, Monday was fine. Tuesday was fine. And yesterday then, obviously, chaos.
So she's on it and then, as you say, these two individuals, they get on at some point. And was it immediate, Fiona? I mean, did they get on and just pick her out or how did it kick off?
Yeah, she was sitting down. I said, were you on your own? She said, no, there's people around me. The interaction between the two, he seemingly looked at my daughter. My daughter would be a very pretty little girl, obviously dressed well for her new job. hair nice, you know, the makeup on. And she was having a go at her boyfriend, I assume he was, to stop looking at my daughter.
And then she kicked off then to assault my daughter with the coke, threw it all over her, threw the can, hit her face and then spat on her. Yeah.
Oh, it's just awful. It really is. So initially she's angry with her fella and then kind of turns around and directs it straight at your daughter.
As I said to my daughter last night, I said, that could have been a setup for you to get off the Lewis. I said, thankfully you didn't. I said, if you had got off, there would be nobody there to help you. You did the right thing by what Daddy said to stay on the Lewis. But you just don't know what is going to evolve out of the antisocial behaviour in this country.
But my point of why I'm on the show today is to highlight the fact that the safety protocol doesn't work. It needs to be fixed.
Okay, so tell me more about that. So when this all happened, well, actually, sorry, before we get into that, were there other people on it?
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Chapter 4: Why did nobody intervene during the assault?
She pressed the button.
So this is for people who don't use the Lewis. There's a button on it to do what? To kind of alert somebody, is it?
To alert somebody, you would hope, yeah. Nobody came. It's an intercom button. Nobody came to it. And then she obviously seen a number, 51444. And she texts that, she messaged that number, I need help, I'm on the Lewis number, whatever the Lewis number was, she was at the time, and nothing. And then she got off the Lewis and there was nobody there, as in no police from the Lewis or security.
My husband spoke with two maintenance people who got in contact with somebody on the Lewis. My husband spoke to a personnel at the end of the phone and he said, I want that footage retained. And she said, that's not something we can do. It'll be a police matter and he said, well, I'm making a request for the footage to be retained.
The police were there with my husband to escort my daughter, you know.
So she managed in all of this to text her dad and say, listen, I'm on my way and this is happening. Yeah.
And she had said to him, I can't put the phone to my ear because I'm afraid she's going to take my phone off me.
Oh God.
So she was obviously scrambling in her seat texting.
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Chapter 5: How effective are emergency protocols on public transport?
Was there a delayed response? Was there ever a response to the text? No, no. Oh, sorry. So it wasn't that it came through kind of five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes later, just there was never a response?
No, no response. No response to the panic, to the button she pressed or no response to the text she sent.
Okay. Okay. It does seem, again, we've got on to Transdev and they haven't got back to us, but you'd wonder what the point is of having a text alert system if, I mean, 24 hours later, it hasn't even been acknowledged that they got a text.
Absolutely. I mean, she pushed the button. She messaged a number. Everyone was there. No one came. The system is not working. It's not working for you. It's not working for her. It's not working for somebody else. And it would not work for a 60-year-old or over that. And we have to do better in this country.
If she got out of the red car where the incident happened, she'd be trapped by their violence. And if she stayed on, which she did, she was trapped by silence and inaction. I actually purchased a personal alarm panic button for her last night. I could see it's wrong. Every shade of wrong. And the Lewis is a public piece of transport that everyone uses. I use it myself.
My family, my colleagues, people I care for in work use it. And it's just, it's not right.
Yeah, I know, you know, my kids are a bit younger than yours, so we're not there yet, but we will be at summer jobs and they will have that bit more independence. And I guess you imagine the places that they're going to be in danger. It's, I don't know, it's almost the cliche, isn't it? It's the kind of the alleyway or the laneway that's in the dark and there's nobody around to see you.
You don't imagine kind of on an absolutely packed Lewis, something's going to kick off and absolutely nobody will do anything and you'll do all of the emergency protocols and nothing will happen.
And if you had no ticket, there's a fine for you. But you get battered on the Lewis and there's nothing for you, you know what I mean? Like it's all shades of wrong. And we need as a society to ensure that this piece is fixed.
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Chapter 6: What are the implications of the justice system on public safety?
I know she's obviously very shook and everything, Fiona. And as you said, like physically, she's OK. But again, I mean, it's easy to, you know, at the benefit of hindsight, we know that was the outcome. I'm sure in the moment there'd have been a degree of terror. Like you don't know what they might have pulled out of their bag or whatever.
Thank God what we have taught our children to some piece worked yesterday with regards to, you know, safety. that she had the sense to then text as opposed to lift the phone to her face and stay on the Lewis as opposed to get off it. But the menu of the Lewis and the safety port, like it's a menu.
And again, you get to read the menu and you're in a state of emergency where you need help there and then. You're on a Lewis, you're on a travelling vehicle and it doesn't come to your help. We need to do better.
It's also, it's just depressing, isn't it, having to go online and buy an alarm for your 16-year-old?
Absolutely, yeah.
You know what I mean?
She's not going into a war zone. She's only going into town. Yeah. Yeah, it's not good enough. And I appreciate, I see, I work in, I see all the antisocial behaviour. I'm, you know, it's my career. Park that to one side. It's the safety bit of the Lewis that isn't working and we need to fix that.
We need to have a simple procedure to follow that will come to the rescue of the individual who needs it.
Yeah. Without that safety procedure, will you let her back on the Lewis to go into work?
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Chapter 7: How do societal attitudes contribute to public transport safety issues?
Yeah.
That was the first stage. And she obviously seen the number of emergency to message, which she did, including the tram number. I don't think I'd have thought of that in real time on the state of panic on a Lewis. But it's still not working.
sometimes incidents like this I mean what they elicit is a debate about transport police that you know you maybe take the responsibility away from private operators and either set up a dedicated kind of police unit or a unit within the Gardaí or something anyway but some version of a transport police would you be reassured if there were such a thing here
Of course you'd be reassured, but you know that's never going to happen. There's not enough resources in this country to facilitate that. There never will be. But the protocol of the Lewis should be simple, usable and active.
Yeah.
And it's not at the minute. Not from my experience yesterday with my daughter.
Yeah. Yeah, no, it's a pretty straightforward request for things to operate the way they're meant to.
And like I said, if you happen to take a Lewis... Yeah, and if you hadn't paid your Lewis, there'd be somebody on to challenge you with that at the next stop. You know, never mind you being battered and looking for help. Nobody came to her on the next stop.
You disappointed with the other people on the Lewis?
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Chapter 8: What solutions are proposed to improve safety on public transport?
087-484-8888 is the WhatsApp number. And Raph, sorry, is it Raph or Rafe?
It's Rafe. It's Rafe, actually, Rafe.
Sorry, Rafe. You're grand. What's your experience then of the Lewis, of this type of behaviour and of trying to get it dealt with?
Yeah. Well, yeah, it was an experience last year. It was a Sunday night. I'd been to a concert in the concert hall, Bill Callaghan, actually a very good gig. And I was waiting at the Lewis stop at Stevens Green to go home.
And some lads came along, they had a bit of drink taken, and they started engaging in racist, Islamophobic abuse, knowing that there were people in the vicinity who probably weren't originally Irish. And it persisted, and they were coming out with this horrific fucking line of so-called patriotism that these people come out with.
And I challenged him and I said, that's great, the stuff you're coming out with. I said, remember, we've had a history of the Catholic Church and mother and baby homes here. So, you know, and then he said, I'm not going to go with you and all this. And the people were scared. People, and I know you're not supposed to intervene, but I just said, I want to call this out. You're not speaking for me.
This is unacceptable. And then they got on to the Lewis and I got on further down. And I said to myself, this is, you know, people, the public order, people aren't safe. I'll do something about it. So I went through all the processes with Transdev, through the WhatsApp, through the email. And I asked him to follow up on this. I rang and I just left messages, got nothing back.
I was going on holiday, so I wasn't going to be checking my email as much. But I did actually two weeks in check the email. And of course, I got nothing back. And you just say to yourself, there's these processes in place, but no one seems to be checking them. How can you have confidence? Do you know what I mean?
I've photographed a number on the Lewis if I ever witnessed this kind of thing again, and I would probably call them, but it's not great. I also had an incident on Dublin Bus, which is a separate one, which I maybe won't go into online here because I did report it to the guards.
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