Rail passengers have received a reprieve from industrial action by the Irish Locomotive Drivers' Association this week, but it may be temporary.
The drivers' union, the ATGWU, wants to refer the cases of three ILDA drivers on disciplinary charges to a Rights Commissioner although Iarnrod Eireann has indicated it is not prepared to go this route.
Statements yesterday by the company's human resources manager, Mr John Keenan, and ILDA branch secretary Mr Brendan Ogle showed how far apart the two sides remain, despite the averting of strike action.
Referring to the company's resistance to the referral of the cases to a Rights Commissioner, Mr Ogle said: "Today has made very clear that ILDA members are trying to resolve the dispute while the company is trying to provoke one.
"Our members want to drive trains and this morning our union wrote to the Labour Relations Commission seeking access to a Rights Commissioner," he said.
"We want to go to the State machinery to resolve the dispute and the company wants to go to the Four Courts with its threat of legal action against the union. Who wants to provoke a dispute, us or them?"
Mr Keenan believes the threat of legal action to recover damages from the ATGWU in the event of a strike concentrated minds at the union's headquarters yesterday morning, where Irish district secretary Mr Ben Kearney proposed the Rights Commissioner avenue to ILDA members as preferable to strike action.
Mr Kearney would not comment publicly on what happened at the meeting but he is understood to have told ILDA members they could not expect union support for their threatened action.
However, he did say afterwards that he thought it "unfair to ask the drivers to go into a tribunal they have no faith in". The Rights Commissioner route was "a fair and honourable formula for everyone".
Mr Keenan said this proposal was "another device by the ILDA to secure recognition".
"IarnrodEireann procedures, which were approved by the Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court, do not provide for referral of cases to a Rights Commissioner. An opinion of the Labour Court found our procedures to be fair and properly applied," he said.
"We will abide by that Labour Court opinion and process the cases fully through procedures. After that the cases can be referred to the Labour Court, again in accordance with our procedures, if the drivers wish."
Mr Ogle said his members would never attend the company's appeals tribunal. Industrial action remained a possibility, but if a strike occurred "it will be the company that causes it", he said.
The chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission, Mr Kieran Mulvey, said it would consider the applications for a Rights Commissioner to hear the cases, but the LRC would have to take cognisance of the recent Labour Court opinion that said internal company procedures were fair.