At the entrance to the Irish Glass Bottle plant yesterday afternoon a group of workers queued in the sun to collect their redundancy payments.

Some brought their children. Many were little more than children themselves when they first began working at the plant in Dublin's Ringsend.

Mr Liam Maher (47) worked at the plant for the past 30 years. He was 17 when he started and was following his father into the business. He was followed in turn by two of his sons. Many of the workers could tell a similar story.

Mr Maher was angry about what he felt was a betrayal. He could not accept the company's claim that it was unable to pay the redundancy recommended by the Labour Court. The Court recommended a payment of five weeks for every year worked. In the end, the company paid just under two weeks plus statutory entitlements.

"All the money came from here and now they're saying that we can't have it and that hurts more than anything," he says, referring to parent company Ardagh's recent acquisitions abroad.

He feels the money generated by the workers in Ringsend facilitated these purchases and this money should have been used instead to pay the redundancy suggested by the Labour Court. Many of his former colleagues on the picket line agree.

However, Ardagh claimed yesterday that a further €9 million could be freed up for redundancies if the unions agreed to lift the picket to allow existing stock to be sold.