CIE management and unions have been called on by the Minister for Public Enterprise, Mrs O'Rourke, to put an end to the various disputes that have bedevilled bus and rail services in the past year.
Appealing directly to the striking ILDA train drivers to return to work, Mrs O'Rourke warned CIE transport companies would have "no future" if unions and management "cannot find a better way to do their business".
The various public transport disputes, which we have had this year, were "enormously damaging to the future of public transport", the Minister told the Humbert Summer School in Ballina last night.
"They create an image in the public mind of a poor and unreliable service, bedevilled by inefficiencies and strife. This is all the more damaging at a time when the Government has committed huge resources for investment in public transport and when it is attempting to convince private car commuters to use public transport," the Minister said.
The Minister paid tribute to the two-thirds of locomotive drivers who have continued to provide train services in "often difficult circumstances during this protracted and unnecessary dispute. They deserve our sincere thanks."
In relation to those not at work, the Minister appealed to them to return to work under the new conditions of employment while the issues in the dispute were being addressed by the joint Labour Court/Labour Relations Commission investigation. "You can return to work under protest, if necessary," she said.
Mrs O'Rourke told the train drivers the travelling public, the business community, Iarnrod Eireann and colleagues wanted them back to work. "I want you back to work. This is not about winning or losing. We all lose while you are not at work - the company, business, you and your families."
The Minister said the matter was not about recrimination. "I abhor the language of confrontation and the rhetoric coming from some quarters that suggests anyone or any worker would be starved into submission."
Mrs O'Rourke said the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness committed management and unions in the CIE operating companies to develop a workplace partnership process which would enable both parties to find new ways of addressing issues "without recourse to the type of industrial anarchy we have witnessed in the past two months".
"I am under no illusions that workplace partnerships will take time to embed," she said.
While over the past year industrial relations in CIE have been through a particularly rough patch, the Minister acknowledged that substantial restructuring agreements have been put in place in both CIE bus companies without significant industrial strife.
Mrs O'Rourke said the Government was still committed to providing a framework for regulatory legislation and said the forthcoming consultative paper on a new Telecommunications Bill would reflect these policies.