u/Southern-Mode7570

Hiya! I'm a (Slovenian) tourist currently in Ireland and am lucky that my father works here from time to time, so I get a chance of affordable visit from time to time - love your country!

What I noticed during my last two visits (now and in last November) were ridiculous delays in bus services. For example, yesterday, a bus (a group of around 50 tourists gathered after some time) from Blarney to Cork arrived with 1h and 10 min delay (or rather: two planned buses just didn't arrive for no particular reason), even though the starting station is like 8 minutes away. The TFI app wasn't in sync, there were just random times there really. Another one was a bus from Bundoran to Letterkenny last year (the Galway-Derry line), that arrived in Bundoran 2h and 20min too late, also last year I waited for a bus in Malahide for almost one hour and half (I don't remember where I went exactly) etc. Someone at the station even called the TFI help centre and they just didn't know what to say. These are three extreme cases, but it's my regular experience that inter-city buses are 20-30 minutes late - I'm generally used to that since I don't remember if I was ever on time with Slovenian railway service (and I rode with it every day for quite some years), but it never stops being obnoxious.

On the other hand, I didn't experience many delays in Dublin city transport and especially not on Irish Rail, which is one of the best I've seen really - trains were basically always totally on time and also much cheaper than bus on the same line.

Am I just unlucky or is this a common problem? And more importantly: is there a way to actually check the real arrival/departure times? One delay leads to another and it made me miss a concert, calling my father to pick me up 2h away from his apartment, since I didn't have any alternative way to go back, and so on ...

Edit: I don't feel entirely comfortable having complaints since I'm not from here, but any help getting around that would be appreciated. Other than that my experiences in Ireland (as a tourist) were really great.