A Siptu spokesman has said that the director of Dunn and Wilson Group Ltd, which owns Reilly Bookbinders, intimated this morning that the company was in fact solvent - a position which runs contrary to earlier claims.
Talks aimed at resolving a dispute in Wicklow town which has seen 14 workers engage in a three-week sit-in broke up today without resolution.
The protest began after the company refused to pay statutory redundancy to the workers at Reilly Bookbinders almost all of whom have been at with the company for between 15 and 28 years.
The organiser of the Siptu's print group division, Shane McKean, wanted the company to appoint a liquidator to help finance a redundancy package.
But today management at the Dunn and Wilson Group, which owns Reillys in the Murrough Industrial Estate, refused. It also surprised the union by saying the company was not insolvent as previously claimed.
The company proposes continuing its work in the Czech Republic.
Settlement proposals were put forward at today's meeting and Mr McKean said the workers would consider them at a meeting tomorrow.
Details of the proposals would be kept confidential until then, Mr McKean said.
A representative of the company could not be contacted for comment.