Navan Road Parkway railway station. The mystery of the high-vis jacket and the hand-written sign.

I'm not sure if Irish Rail, as a semi-state body, is subject to the Croke Park Agreement or not.  

The CPA was negotiated by Fianna Fail and the Greens just before they were turfed out of the last government.

It is now similarly championed by Fine Gael and Labour, as a means of "extracting extra efficiencies from the public sector" without its members feeling the pain felt by those in the private sector. 

 Benchmarking wasn't designed to work work both ways, it seems.

Coincidentally, this is the very public sector that provides the wages and pensions of politicians, judges and civil servants, including highly-paid senior ones who advise the government of today and those of the past, no matter what the logos.

So whether, or not, the semi-states are part of this happy band, it is quite likely - as bodies subsidised by the public purse – they are not subject to the wrecked economy's chill winds to the same extent as those outside the club.

Nice, so, to see this high-visability jacket putting in 24-four-hour shifts at Navan Road Parkway –  a supposedly manned railway station.  A human, however, has not been spotted behind the counter by this daily commuter for weeks or months.  

Stakhanov's high-vi, had he had one, might have been proud.

The sign on the window says "Tickets available only at the machine".  The authorities are expected to launch an investigation because it was not rendered bi-lingually.

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