DUBLIN hauliers are to meet today to decide if they will enter talks with the shipping companies on freight charges and related issues. Representatives of the hauliers, who have been blockading Dublin and Rosslare ports, met the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Mr Dukes, last night. They are to put proposals from the Minister to their colleagues at today's meeting.
Mr Dukes has offered to provide facilitators for discussions between the two sides, and he said last night that talks could begin immediately if the hauliers accepted his proposals.
However, a spokesman for the hauliers, Mr Joe Barrett, said he and his colleagues would not return to work until talks with the shipping companies and other clients had reached a successful conclusion. But the blockade would not be renewed if the hauliers decided to accept the invitation to talks, he said.
Earlier yesterday afternoon, the hauliers temporarily lifted their blockade as a "goodwill gesture" in advance of the talks with Mr Dukes.
The mood among hauliers hardened for a time yesterday when they heard that the Competition Authority had obtained an injunction against them in the High Court at the time they were suspending their action and allowing vehicles trapped in the port to depart. The president of the Irish Road Hauliers Association, Mr Jimmy Quinn, said the injunction "couldn't have come at a worse time in terms of influencing the situation".
He said the hauliers' leaders in Dublin and Rosslare had worked hard to convince their members to lift the blockade. They had done so in an effort to defuse the situation and create a positive atmosphere for meaningful talks. The IRHA says it is not involved in the blockades of Dublin and Rosslare ports.
While chipping companies can reroute supplies, Pandoro has said the current action could cost it £500,000 per week, and another company, Coastal Line, has said that if the action continued it would have to lay off half its staff on Monday morning.
The hauliers are threatening to extend any resumed blockade to other ports. The Competition Authority injunction made this much more likely last night.
It is understood the authority had been planning legal action against the IRHA even before the blockade began. The association had been under investigation for almost a month, following a complaint from the Pandoro shipping company that it was trying to increase haulage rates.
Mr Paul Gallagher SC, for the Authority, told the High Court the ports were being blockaded in an attempt to implement a collective agreement on a schedule of "minimum haulage rates" to be put to ship owners.
This left the hauliers in breach of the Competition Act, 1991. The Authority was entitled to take proceedings where there was considerable public interest.
The hauliers are seeking a review of rates, which they claim have not been increased for up to 5 years in some cases.
Yesterday the docks, marine and transport branch of SIPTU came out strongly in support of the hauliers.