Irish Rail has received 84 complaints about anti-social behaviour on the Galway rail line, and 62 complaints from passengers concerning the behaviour of other passengers on the Sligo line since 2015.

Data released to the Irish Times under the Freedom of Information Act show issues reported by passengers include assault, theft and intimidation, vandalism, noise and smoking or drinking onboard.

Nationally, there have been 326 compaints recorded so far this year, compared to 249 last year.

The highest number of complaints was in relation to “disorderly passengers”, followed by passenger intimidation, vandalism and theft.

In response, Irish Rail said a small number of passengers engage in anti-social behaviour but the company takes a number of measures to tackle the problem.

A spokesman said there were 42.8 million journeys on the network in 2016, and the overwhelming majority of these were made without incident.

Trains are equipped with high-quality CCTV which enables the company to follow up incidents, including with gardaí.

Irish Rail also says they have a number of mobile security teams on the rail network, and they intend to enhance staffing on trains for customer security.