Talks to avert threatened industrial action by 300 level-crossing gate-keepers begin today. If they fail, unions are threatening to serve strike notice for next week, severely disrupting services to the west and south-east.
The dispute is over pay and working conditions. SIPTU's rail branch secretary, Mr Tony Tobin, says gate-keepers are increasingly angry at the failure of Iarnrod Eireann to honour previous commitments.
Meanwhile, SIPTU and the National Bus and Railworkers' Union are meeting tomorrow to consider a Labour Court recommendation aimed at settling the dispute between Iarnrod Eireann and its 138 signallers.
Industrial action by signallers has forced the company to close down all mainline services for three days over the past two weeks, and a further three-day strike is planned from tomorrow.
Negotiators spent 23 hours at the Labour Court discussing the signallers dispute over the weekend. Mr Tobin said afterwards: "The court is now in receipt of all the relevant information, and the joint union negotiating committee will be meeting on Tuesday to evaluate its recommendation.
"I hope we can defer the strike, but that is entirely dependant on the recommendation being good enough to put out to ballot."
Iarnrod Eireann's human resources manager, Mr John Keenan, said the company could not sustain the earnings of all signallers at the present level, when they were being given a reduction of between 20 per cent and 25 per cent in the working week.
He said average earnings over the past two years had been exceptionally high because overtime was needed to cover a number of vacancies the company intends filling.
On the gate-keepers' dispute Mr Tobin said last night the company had failed to honour commitments on pay and working conditions. "There is still no running water, electricity, toilets or cooking facilities at some crossings." He added: "In the event of the dispute not being resolved tomorrow we will be giving notice of industrial action."
Mr Keenan said that if talks failed a conciliation meeting was planned for next week. He appealed to unions not to take action before then.