Iarnrod Eireann has decided to press ahead with its campaign to reassure the public of the availability of train services, despite the fact that the threat of pickets from dissident train drivers is still very much a reality.
Last night, the executive secretary of the ILDA, Mr Brendan Ogle, accused Iarnrod Eireann of making preparations to "lock our members out of work" and shut down a third of the railways. He said the ILDA was not prepared to allow such a position to develop.
"We have plenty of support in Dublin Bus and the DART and we'll be considering all our options carefully," he added.
Iarnrod Eireann is confident it can cater for end-of-season demand despite the damage to services and customer confidence caused by the 12-week dispute, the company's director of human resources, Mr John Keenan, said.
Some services were still badly hit, he conceded, notably in the south and south-west as well as commuter Dublin services to and from Kildare and Drogheda. But the situation on the Dublin-Sligo and Claremorris-Westport lines had improved considerably.
He said a new timetable which stipulates the precise dimensions of the "guaranteed service" will not be ready before the end of next month or mid-October. "Once we have it structured we then have to renegotiate the change with the two unions."
In response to charges that the company was endeavouring to "freeze out" the ILDA by attempting to provide a service irrespective of the dissident train drivers, Mr Keenan said that was not the primary object of the exercise.