A woman has told RTE's Joe Duffy how she and her friend were left in shock after Irish Rail stopped the train they were travelling on to remove an unopened bottle of wine from their luggage.
Speaking on RTE's LiveLine, caller Grainne said she was travelling from Dublin to Westport on the 12.45pm train on Friday, June 24, when the incident occurred.
Grainne was joined by her fellow female friends, all aged in their 60s and 70s.
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Before the train departed, she had taken a picture of a picnic basket she had prepared and shared the snap to Instagram, tagging Irish Rail in the post.
The basket included an unopened bottle of prosecco as the women were heading to Westport to celebrate a 70th birthday.
Grainne told the show that she suspected tagging Irish Rail in the post may have led to security coming down to their seats just before departure.
While she said she left her bottle of prosecco at home, Grainne said her friend had a bottle of wine in her luggage.
She said: "We're sitting on board the train, and minutes before departure, an OCS security person working on behalf of Irish Rail came up and said, 'do you have alcohol?'
"We said yeah, because my friends had a bottle of wine. She said well, there's no alcohol allowed on Irish Rail. We said, OK, well, we won't drink it.
"She said I'm sorry I hate this part of my job, but I have to take it."
Grainne explained that she thinks her social media post alerted security to them as her friend's wine was "in a closed bag", and they had no other alcohol on their tables.
The women were informed that they could collect the wine at Heuston Station when they returned to Dublin that Sunday.
But Grainne also claimed that security said the train "is not moving until you hand it over."
"We felt kind of threatened, and we didn't really want to cause a scene and call the guards over a bottle of wine," she added.
Grainne said the women became even more annoyed by the incident after they spotted other passengers consuming alcohol throughout the journey.
She questioned why the others were not stopped and whether Irish Rail passengers cannot carry alcohol in their luggage anymore, even if they are bringing someone a "bottle of whiskey" as a gift.
In a statement released to Independent.ie, an Irish Rail spokesperson said: "We introduced a policy during the pandemic that alcohol was not permitted at any time on board our services. This has been maintained, as part of measures to prevent anti-social behaviour on board, and during the continued absence of catering services on board.
"We do not, nor did we, use our social media in the way described. I can only assume that a security agent or staff member at some point in the station saw that a member of the party had alcohol with them."
The spokesperson added that the customer's post from that date did not in fact tag Irish Rail.
"I understand a group joined the train later in the journey who consumed alcohol, and I understand the annoyance this caused. I can assure the customer that had the group been boarding at Heuston, the security team whom she met would have confiscated this alcohol also."
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