‘They called me a f***ing n****r’ – Luas ticket inspector describes racial abuse hurled at him daily

Dealing with the public has not been as positive an experience as he’d imagined.

His worst experience was on a day when he was going about his usual routine of getting on a tram carriage and asking passengers to show they had valid tickets.

Today's News in 90 Seconds - April 17th

An older man started shouting as the tram moved swiftly along the tracks near the Four Courts.

“I asked for his ticket, and he had no ticket,” he said. “He shouted about the KKK.

“He said, ‘I’m going to sort you out’ and emphasised. ‘I’m talking to you’. . Lucky for me, there was a lady there who got involved and said “You can’t say stuff like that. That’s ridiculous to say”.

“My colleague ran into a garda station and they arrested the guy.”

He says he hasn’t heard anything about it since then.

The father-of-two was born in Lagos in Nigeria and has been living in Ireland for 25 years . He might endure racial abuse four or five times a day some days. “You can’t be ringing the controller every minute," he said. “They have to make sure the tram gets to its destination.

“Anti-social behaviour has been going on a long time and we can’t get enough gardaí to deal with the situation. It’s getting worse. A few days ago we had a few lads climbing on the back of the tram and they were trying to get on and vandalise it, about 10 or 12 of them, near the canal.

" They were moving from one place to another. That’s how scary it is. And the passengers are scared. They are looking at us like we have to do something. We can’t get involved or we could end up badly hurt. I believe it’s getting absolutely crazy now.

“There are a lot on junkies on the trams. One time, two of them were smoking and when I told them to get off they said “you f**king n****r”. They just profile you. If you don’t sound like you’re Irish, they profile you. I find that very exhausting. The company is doing its best. We get training and we try to remove ourselves from these situations. If they move from one tram, they might be on the next tram. You don’t want to get involved in a serious mess.”

He's sticking with the job as he needs to “put food on the table” and pay the bills.

“It would send a message if there was punishment. I think it’s high time to get a transport police.”

He was among a delegation that included Siptu officials, who attended the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications yesterday.

The issue of drug use by passengers has got worse in the last 12 months, according to a Siptu survey. Nearly three quarters of those surveyed said they witnessed drug use at work and reported incidents of racist harassment at work.

Labour’ transport spokesperson Duncan Smith called for immediate action to address the safety concerns of transport workers across the country.