Irish Rail says that economic recovery and rising employment rates have contributed to a higher number of rail journeys in 2014.

Figures for 2014 rose across all services by nearly 1 million, to 37.6 million journeys.

29.3 million trips were made on DART and Commuter services, and 8.4 million journeys were taken on the Intercity services.

Corporate Communications Manager with Irish Rail, Barry Kenny, said special events also contributed to higher journey numbers.

Mr Kenny said: "So the intercity, the longer distance journeys, have increased going up by 300,000 in a year and the DART and commuter journeys have risen by 600,000.

"Some of our routes have grown very strongly, like the Dublin-Galway route, which is up 6.4% during the year.

"Then we see growth in terms of major events, the Irish Open golf increased the Cork to Cobh commuter line by 15%, which is a huge jump in a 12-month period."