Strikers to repair Ballymun lifts as talks open

Striking engineers will today repair lifts in the Ballymun flats complex where residents have been without a service for up to seven weeks.

The strikers' union, the TEEU, has offered to restore lift services in Ballymun regardless of the outcome of Labour Court talks which opened yesterday.

The offer should lead to a "significant improvement" in the situation from today, said Dublin Corporation's principal officer for housing and community services, Mr Brendan Kenny. But he said it was not clear how many of the approximately 60 lifts which are out of order would be repaired. The complex has 73 lifts.

Mr Kenny said the union had offered to have some lifts repaired today and at regular intervals should the strike continue. "It's not ideal, but we're hoping it will provide a pretty significant improvement," he said.

The offer was welcomed by Mr Sean O Cionnaith of the Ballymun Better Lift Services Campaign. "We're delighted they have responded to our concerns, though we're sorry they couldn't do it earlier," he said.

Residents worst affected by the industry-wide dispute, which began on June 30th, are the 2,500 tenants and their families who live in the eight-storey blocks, which have no lift service. As part of the emergency cover being provided by the strikers, one of every two lifts in the 15-storey buildings are being maintained.

Mr Kenny said the corporation had not ruled out finding other ways of maintaining the lifts, following Monday's Supreme Court decision that the authority take all reasonable steps within its power to explore every means of repairing and maintaining them.

He said discussions had taken place with the Army, but the Army did not even service its own lifts because of the specialised nature of the task. It might also be difficult to persuade a foreign company to provide the service "simply to break a strike". But he stressed that if some way could be found to alleviate the situation "we will do our level best to do it".

Talks between the employers' body, IBEC, representing the lift companies affected by the pay dispute, and the TEEU continued in the Labour Court last night.