A private bus operator was prevented by striking workers in Limerick from bringing passengers to the suburb of Raheen yesterday morning. The gardai were called but did not intervene and no arrests were made as all Bus Eireann traffic in the city ground to a halt.
Mr David Moroney, of Moroney's Coaches, who runs a service from Ennis and Shannon to Dublin, later said on Limerick 95FM radio he intended to bring just one early-morning worker from the Bus Eireann pick-up point on the city's O'Connell Street to the Raheen industrial estate without charge, along with passengers who had travelled from Co Clare.
He decided to take on other people stranded at the bus stop to oblige them, but was prevented from leaving. Bus Eireann drivers banged the windscreen and the sides of the bus until the passengers alighted, he said, and he had called the gardai.
No damage was caused, and Mr Moroney said he was sympathetic to the striking workers.
Most of the 18 trains which run from Colbert Station to Ennis, Limerick Junction and Dublin, also failed to operate, preventing a total of about 2,500 people from reaching their destinations, said Mr Jim Gallivan, business development executive with Iarnrod Eireann.
However, one train crew operated the 2.45 p.m. train to Dublin and departed on the return trip at 5.25 p.m.
Up to 10,000 commuters and travellers were affected by the stoppages, a Bus Eireann spokesman said, after the entire fleet of 80 provincial buses and 18 city buses remained in their depots.
The earliest buses were scheduled to run at 6.30 a.m. from the surrounding towns in the county and in Tipperary, Cork and Clare. But about 150 drivers did not turn up for work.
An Aer Rianta spokesman in Shannon said some workers were inconvenienced but otherwise there were no noticeable problems as a result of the strike, which had prevented bus services to Limerick and Ennis.