Talks have reconvened this evening between Bank of Ireland management and the Irish Bank Officials Association (IBOA) over a planned strike by staff at the company's IT subsidiary.
Some 300 staff at ITSIS in Cabinteely, Dublin, which carries out an IT support function for the bank, are due to undertake a 24-hour stoppage on Wednesday. Branch banking services will not be affected by the dispute.
The dispute centres on Bank of Ireland's plans to outsource the information technology function to Hewlett Packard (HP).
The majority of the business will transfer to HP, with a small amount to go to Esat BT.
While the $600 million contract with HP is of seven years' duration, staff at ITSIS have so far been offered contracts for just two years.
The workers are seeking an extension of their job security beyond the two-year period.
They also want a provision for redeployment within the Bank of Ireland group in the event that they are eventually threatened with redundancies.
In addition, the staff want an agreed voluntary redundancy package put in place to protect them into the future and a commitment by HP to recognise the IBOA as their representative body.
A spokesman for the IBOA told ireland.comthat the talks at Dublin's Burlington Hotel today involved the bank, the IBOA and also HP.
It was too early to say whether any breakthrough was likely this evening, he said.
"In the event of us not being able to conclude this evening, I think strike action is inevitable on Wednesday," he added.
A spokeswoman for Bank of Ireland also said it was too early to say whether there would be any agreement this evening.