Is Irish Rail now worse than Ryanair when it comes to customer service? With the bad weather at Christmas, everybody realised that things wouldn't run smoothly but the company decided not to tell those travelling from Heuston that the toilets on board the trains were frozen solid. By that stage, the problem had been ongoing since Monday at least but did not appear to have been put on the website and was not being announced on the intercom system in the station.

The result was people queuing for 40 minutes to ensure a place on the train and only after it departed being told the toilets weren't working. No account seems to have been taken that some people were travelling with infants while the inspector on my train told me "Sure nobody would have used the ones in the station anyway."

Later, when I tried to get a hot drink from the dining car for a gentleman in the wheelchair, I was told they had run out of brown paper bags and therefore couldn't sell me one for health and safety reasons. In fairness to the worker behind the counter, when I explained the situation he brought the drink down himself but still, are we really incapable of carrying a cup of tea with a plastic covering?

Irish Rail's booking system is also a disaster; it regularly only switches on after the train leaves the station and on about 50% of the trips I've taken it hasn't worked at all. In particular, leaving from Cork the system hasn't worked on the last four occasions I've taken the train. The last time I asked, the Irish Rail worker made a call and was told they'd forgotten to turn it on and it was too late to do so.

Other simple measures are also avoided.

At Heuston, and many other stations, it would be simple to tell passengers that seating is reserved in certain carriages but that there is free seating elsewhere. It happens in Connolly, but why not everywhere. The result is people stuck moving through the train trying to find a seat in carriages that are completely booked out. In addition it would be easy to put a sticker on the door of each carriage showing the seat numbers at either end. These are little things that don't cost much, if anything, but again it just doesn't happen and the reasoning is beyond me. The result is customer impatience and annoyance, both of which are completely unnecessary. What use is a 10-year investment plan is you don't get the basics right?