SIPTU train drivers in Cork are due to meet today to discuss new proposals to provide ammonia trains for the Irish Fertilizer Industries plant in Arklow. This follows talks attended by SIPTU president Mr Des Geraghty and the union's national industrial secretary, Mr Noel Dowling, in the city last night.
The trains are needed to reopen the Irish Fertilizer Industries plant where almost 200 SIPTU members are laid off.
There had been hopes that the Irish Locomotive Drivers' Association would co-operate with a new plan that would allow its members in Cork to drive ammonia trains only. However, the ILDA executive decided at a meeting in Dublin yesterday that its members would only work the trains under the old agreement.
Its executive secretary, Mr Brendan Ogle, said after the executive meeting that the association would take up an invitation by religious and civic leaders in Cork to mediate in the situation.
However, on the driving of ammonia trains, he said the ILDA position remained that of last Tuesday, when it had offered to "ringfence the IFI situation and work these trains on our pre-dispute conditions of service, subject to regular review."
This is not acceptable to the company.
Meanwhile train services are expected to remain patchy today. There will be no Cork-Cobh trains. Services on the Westport and Kildare Arrow route will be the next worst affected. There will be only three trains each way on the Kildare and Portlaoise commuter service and two trains each way between Dublin and Athlone on the Westport route.
There will be a two-thirds service on the Drogheda-Dundalk suburb routes to Dublin.