Would you pay extra for a child free carriage?
While no such option exists in Ireland - yet - France’s SNCF train operator is rolling them out on one high speed line.
Sitting in the child free carriage costs more and has divided opinion across the French Republic, with the country’s High Commissioner for Children Sarah El Haïry describing it as “shocking”.
On Lunchtime Live, Wicklow resident Tina said she would happily “pay a premium” for a child free carriage and considered it an "excellent idea".
“I think it's a brilliant idea to at least have the option,” she argued.
“I mean, people, as you said, working on computers, they want to work in peace and quiet or, you know, if they're coming home stressed and tired after a long day, people who simply aren't child-friendly.”
When asked whether it was an “anti-family” measure, Tina disagreed.
“Not when you've got the rest of the train for them to run around in,” she said.
“I mean, they're talking about maybe one carriage, but I have a feeling if they introduce this, you might find there's 10 carriages that are child-free and one carriage that's got children in it.
“I think everybody will be opting for the quiet life.”
Children travelling in a carriage on a London Underground tube train. Picture by: Alamy.com. Tina added that she considered adults who make a lot of noise on public transport equally irritating.
“There are people who, I mean, they've got their airpods in and you can hear the music booming away or shouting, on telephone calls to each other, shouting,” she said.
“You can almost hear both sides of the conversation.
“And that's why I think if you had to pay a premium, a few bob more for a quiet, like the old days, the first class carriage.”
Opposing the child free carriages, Katie Makk of the Opinions Matter podcast said the idea smacked of “exclusion and discrimination”.
“I understand what Tina is saying about having the option, but it's a slippery slope that I think to child free restaurants, child free planes, child free everything,” she said.
“And I am a parent myself and I love peace and quiet, but then if a train is really busy and there's only X amount of spaces for families, do families miss out on journeys then?”
Main image: A young girl on a train. Picture by: Alamy.com.
