Talks aimed at averting further strikes in Dublin Bus are to take place on Monday.
However, as of now, work stoppages scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday this week are still scheduled to go ahead.
The Workplace Relations Commission intervened in the dispute on Sunday and invited unions and management to attend talks to resolve the on-going pay dispute.
Highly paced sources said the commission had invited the parties for exploratory talks to discuss whether options existed for engagement.
Siptu divisional organiser Owen Reidy and NBRU general secretary Dermot O’Learyboth welcomed the invitation.
However they said any consideration of cancelling strikes scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday would only be taken after their unions assessed if any progress had been made at the talks on Monday.
Staff at Dublin Bus have staged six days of strikes so far this month as part of a campaign for higher pay.
About 400,000 people have had their travel plans disrupted on each day of the strikes.
Business groups said the stoppages had cost millions in lost trade.
Three further days of strikes are scheduled to take place in the coming week on Tuesday, September 27th; Wednesday, September 28th; and Saturday, October 1st.
A further 10 days of strikes are scheduled for October.
These are Wednesday 5th, Friday 7th, Monday 10th, Wednesday 12th, Friday 14th, Tuesday 18th, Wednesday 19th, Monday 24th, Wednesday 26th and Saturday 29th.
Dublin Bus services resumed Sunday morning after the latest 48 hour stoppage.
Unions are seeking increases of 15 per cent over three years while Dublin Bus has said it can afford no more than the 8.25 per cent recommended by the Labour Court.
Unions are also looking for payment of a 6 per cent rise due originally under a national wage deal in 2008.
The National Bus and Rail Union is also seeking pay parity for Dublin Bus drivers with drivers on the Luas light rail system.
Amid further calls for political intervention in the distpute, Minister for Education Richard Bruton said the Government would not provide extra money to Dublin Bus.
Mr Burton said it would be a “disaster” for the Government as the sole shareholder to offer more money to resolve the pay dispute.
“We have an independent company there. It has to decide how it will negotiate an agreement with its workers.
“Everyone has a right to request higher living standards but it has to be done within the company’s capacity to manage those affairs.”
Speaking on RTÉ's The Week in Politics, the Minister definitively ruled out an increased subvention for the beleaguered company.
“The company has to decide can it afford to make a payment greater than what the Labour Court has decided and they have to look at whether they can recover that from the higher fares.”
Minister for Transport Shane Ross is under increasing pressure to intervene in the dispute.
Mr Bruton pointed out that “if you want to make investment in public transport services you do it in a consistent way”. The national transport authority looked at subventions and “they apply taxpayers’ money to those purposes for real defined goals”.
Asked about potential privatisation and further funding to resolve the dispute Mr Bruton stressed that “this is an industrial dispute. This isn’t about public policy”.
Fianna Fáil transport spokesman Robert Troy said it should be acknowledged that Dublin Bus workers had increased productivity, passenger numbers, revenue and profits.
However under the confidence and supply agreement between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael there is a commitment by both sides to adhere to decisions of the state’s industrial machinery including the Labour Court.
