Dermot O'Leary, General Secretary of the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU), has accused Irish Rail of 'moving the goalposts' in their Workplace Relations Commission talks.
He told Newstalk Breakfast that drivers have been involved in talks with the company for nearly ten years.
“We went to the WRC yesterday to discuss the broad agenda. When we arrived there, we were told quite clearly and categorically that the company would not discuss all of the other agenda items unless an issue around training was discussed and agreed in advance - and obviously that’s not tenable.”
Irish Rail Corporate Communications Manager Barry Kenny told the same programme: “At all times along this process we have been saying ‘yes, all issues need to be addressed’ - but those issues do include the continued, organised withdrawal of co-operation with the training of new drivers.
“We want to discuss all aspects of this report as well - but the fact of the matter is that we have nine trainees in Dart driving that are being prevented from completing training.”
Mr O’Leary claimed that unions proposed putting training at the top of the agenda at the WRC talks, but the offer was refused - which Mr Kenny argued was “a fiction”.
Mr O’Leary responded: “The company has already acknowledged that the issue of training is part of a comprehensive agenda. To pick out one item in the middle of what are sensitive and should be intense negotiations. All it does is move the goalpost, and it frustrates people.”
Irish Rail train drivers are calling for their working week to be brought in line with drivers in the UK by cutting their hours from 43 hours to 35.
A report on the issues has been drawn up by the Labour Court, and that report is one of the issues that was expected to be discussed over the three days of WRC talks that got underway yesterday.
Unions previously warned that a failure to improve the drivers’ terms and conditions “will inevitably result in our members having to resort to engaging in industrial action in order to realise such improvements”.