Local link bus services in West Waterford have been curtailed due to the refusal of some passengers on Saturday night to comply with covid regulations.
The company said the behaviour of some passengers on the 11.30pm service from Dungarvan to Tallow was 'unacceptable'.
As a result, Local Link has cancelled all remaining evening services on the 363 Tallow to Dungarvan service until January 8th.
This includes the 8pm from Tallow and 11.30 return service from Dungarvan.
Due to the unacceptable behaviour of a number of passengers on our 11.30pm service on Saturday 19th December from Dungarvan to Tallow Local Link have canceled all remaining evening services on our 363 Tallow to Dungarvan service till Thursday 8th Januaryhttps://t.co/mwWazzlDa1
— TFI Local Link Waterford (@WaterfordLink) December 21, 2020
All other services operate as usual.
James O'Donoghue is the manager of the local link service. He said disregarding public health guidelines is a punishable offence:
"People had drink taken. They were in a very festive mood and were singing and then removed their masks. Obviously, people are required to sit in their seats, wear their seatbelts and wear their facemasks.
"All of that is mandatory and is punishable by fines at the moment.
"At a time when everyone is being well notified of what to do in terms of Covid restrictions, the fact people would actually behave like that on a public transport service is beyond belief. We will be looking into it to see if we can identify people - it's just totally unacceptable."
A short video of the behaviour was posted on Facebook, James says they are trying to identify those involved.
"We are looking into it, we do have CCTV on the buses so we'll be examining the footage. What was really disappointing was someone actually set up a Facebook page to post the clip on Facebook."
