All Irish Ferries sailings were cancelled again yesterday as a strike by ship officers continued with no sign of a resolution.
The company yesterday laid off a further 127 staff, and by this evening it is expected that up to 500 of its 1,200-strong workforce will have been removed from the payroll.
Exporters, meanwhile, said the strike would begin by the weekend to have a "severe impact" on their ability to get products shipped to Britain and continental Europe.
The strike by SIPTU members is in response to the company's decision to outsource employment next year on its MV Normandy service between Rosslare and France. It says the move will result in Irish seafarers being replaced by "low-cost foreign" labour.
The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mr Martin, yesterday called on the two sides to enter immediate discussions.
He said they should "stop sparring, get on with it and get into the Labour Relations Commission", but said an intervention by him would be counter-productive.
There was no indication, however, that the parties were ready to enter discussions. Management says it cannot negotiate while the strike is in place.
Mr Alf McGrath, director of human resources, said the 127 laid off yesterday were all employed in shore-based operations. A further 150 seafarers, due to return to work today after rostered time off, would also be laid off, he said.
Mr McGrath said it would not be long before the strike caused permanent damage to the company as freight customers forced to switch to other carriers might not return.
Mr John Whelan, chief executive of the Irish Exporters' Association, said members were coping with the effects of the strike to date, and had sufficient capacity on alternative carriers.
If the strike continued until the weekend, however, exporters would begin to suffer as "all the slack has been taken out of the system".
Irish Ferries carries about 25 per cent of the €37 billion worth of merchandise exported by ship from the Republic each year. Of this, about €20 billion worth of product goes to customers in Britain.
Mr Whelan said any setback, such as bad weather preventing a sailing of Stena Line's high-speed ferry or one of the three remaining carriers sending a vessel for maintenance, would have a severe impact on exporters.
