Forfas agency staff, which include IDA and Enterprise Ireland personnel, are due to impose a communications "blackout" on Monday as the dispute over grading re-structuring escalates. Unless negotiations in the Labour Court are agreed over the weekend, the 750 staff, members of SIPTU, plan to progressively stop using telephones, e-mail and computers. Fax communications will be exempted.

The action was agreed by about 500 members of the agencies, which together employ 1,100 people, a fortnight ago. The action will escalate on Wednesday, when staff stop using e-mails, and again on Friday, when they plan to stop using computers. Enterprise Ireland has called for the dispute to be referred to the Labour Court. ISME, the small firms lobby group, backed the call "to avoid holding the business community and its employees to ransom".