Today senior officials of the departments of the Taoiseach and Public Enterprise are to meet Telecom Eireann trade union leaders in order to try and defuse a dispute over worker directors. The unions are threatening to take industrial action if their members are not given direct representation on the board of the company after privatisation.

If progress is not made at today's meeting, the issue is expected to be raised at the conferences of the main Telecom Eireann unions, which are due to take place over the next three weeks. It is likely that emergency resolutions for strike ballots would follow, which would provide a sombre background to the public flotation of the company in late June, or early July.

The row could also create problems with the privatisation of other state companies. The Telecom Eireann launch sets an important precedent and already employees are expressing concern at delays in the introduction of the employee share option trust (ESOT), which gives them 14.9 per cent of the company.

It is an indication of the seriousness of the situation that the general secretary of the ICTU, Mr Peter Cassells, is to lead the trade union delegation.

At present there are two worker directors on the 12 strong-board and the unions had expected to retain at least one of these on the new board. The general secretary of the Communications Workers' Union, Mr Con Scanlon, said yesterday that members were already concerned at delays in the launch of the initial public offering (IPO).

They had been making pension contributions towards their own shareholding since last November and co-operating with radical new work practices in anticipation that the ESOT arrangements would have been resolved by now, he said. On the issue of worker directors, Mr Scanlon said that the unions had been led to believe there would be no problem in principle.

However, it appears that the Department of Public Enterprise has serious difficulties now with the idea of worker directors, he added. The CWU, which has 8,500 members, is to discuss the situation at its annual conference next week. The other major Telecom Eireann unions, the CPSU and IMPACT, are to hold their conferences during the following fortnight.

Mr Scanlon said yesterday that "tomorrow's meeting under Partnership 2000 is really a make-or-break meeting. I don't think the other side realise how urgent the matter is. We are prepared to be imaginative and innovative if necessary to solve the problem, but there appears to be trenchant opposition to the idea of worker representation on the board".

A spokesman for the Department of Public Enterprise said that there were arrangements for the workers to be represented on the new board through the ESOT nominee, Mr Dick Spring. In the post-flotation situation Telecom Eireann would no longer be a semi-state company and, therefore, worker directors' legislation would not apply.

"Having said that, the Minister, Ms O'Rourke, and the Department have been looking at the issue of how best workers' rights can be represented on the board," he said.

The Telecom Eireann flotation is creating such demand that some expectant parents have even attempted to register their as yet unborn children. Needless to say, they have been scuppered by the requirement to give name and date-of-birth to qualify. Telecom reports a strong response to its mailshot to all 2.8 million people on the electoral register, in terms of those returning documents and phoning the information line.

It has asked those filling in the registration forms to provide three pieces of information, in addition to their name and address. These are their date of birth, their mother's maiden name and their preferred title. These requirements are partly designed to combat fraud. Telecom has said that many of the forms returned so far have left out the person's preferred title (e.g. Mr, Mrs, Ms, Dr, Professor) and asks that this be filled in to allow follow-up correspondence to be properly addressed.

Some callers to the helpline have also complained about the lack of Internet information. However, Telecom has pointed out that it was unable to do this because of the rules of the US Securities and Exchange Commission.