The Taoiseach continues to imply that there is little more he can do to prevent Irish Ferries from proceeding to replace the 543 workers on its ferries with foreign workers earning half the minimum wage, writes Mark Brennock, Chief Political Correspondent
But without further intervention from the Government, and concrete measures to prevent cheap foreign labour from being used to drive down Irish wages, there now appears to be no prospect of renewed social partnership talks.
Discussions due to start this month to extend the 18 year partnership process which has brought industrial peace and stable wages have been deferred by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (Ictu), which is seeking Government action on the issue.
The Taoiseach badly wants the renewal of social partnership. Yesterday in the Dáil he again said Irish Ferries should abide by the Labour Court call for it to shelve its controversial plan.
"The orderly conduct of industrial relations depends on respect for the basic norms of the institutions of the State, in this case the Labour Court," he said.
Its recommendations should be respected as the proper resolution of disputes. He urged the parties to enter into negotiations with an independent facilitator if necessary.
"The issues in dispute between Siptu and the company can in fact be resolved speedily and quickly."
Nobody else can see how. The company has behaved unilaterally throughout, pressing ahead despite union and Government objection with its "outsourcing" project.
Its immediate response to the Labour Court decision backing the unions' case was to tell the stock exchange that it had no intention of complying with it, and that it was going ahead with the plan.
Nobody expects any voluntary concession by the company.
The unions are demanding Government action, saying every employer in Ireland is watching, wondering whether Irish Ferries will get away with it, and if so whether they could, perhaps, perform a similar manoeuvre.
So far the Taoiseach has suggested there is little he can do that has not been done already.
The Department of the Marine, he says, has turned down Irish Ferries' application to deregister its vessels from Ireland so they can sail under a Cypriot flag instead.
He reminded the Dáil too of what he had said in the past about statutory redundancy: That is was far from certain that the State would accommodate Irish Ferries by paying out redundancy money in circumstances in which posts were not being closed down, but one set of workers was simply being replaced by another. But apart from that, he had been told that there was little prospect of regulating the employment conditions of staff employed on vessels under the Irish flag.
Ictu sees the prospect of Irish Ferries shedding its Irish staff, only to replace them with foreigners earning half the legal minimum wage, as opening an "appalling vista", as one union source put it yesterday.
"Employers around Ireland are watching to see if they get away with it. The Labour Court has said they failed to make a compelling business case. They say they face compelling competitive pressure, yet their main competitor, Stena, has made clear it will not go down this route.
"Despite their claims to be in trouble their freight business is growing at an enormous rate. It is for the Government to ensure we don't open the door to lots of Irish employers to follow suit."
This may be overstating the argument that this represents a watershed in Ireland's industrial relations. This is just one employer whose staff operate on the high seas and can use the antiquated "flagging" laws that apply to seagoing vessels to avoid legislative obligations.
Even if some boats sailing into and out of Ireland can employ foreigners at €3.60 an hour to do jobs once done by Irish people at Irish rates, this does not mean typical employers can follow suit.
But while the Irish Ferries case has several unique elements, it also has characteristics of the most sensitive issue currently emerging in Irish industrial relations - the prospect that cheap foreign labour could be used to drive down Irish wages.
This is not solely a detail of industrial relations talks. If the idea takes hold that foreign labour represents a threat to Irish workers' standard of living, it could have much broader social implications in a State still accommodating itself to its growing multicultural nature. Private companies turning migrant workers into the enemies of Irish workers is the last thing the Government needs.
And the trade unions insist that it is not simply the interests of long-standing Irish workers they are defending. They also wish to protect from exploitation the many newer foreign workers who are open to exploitation by unscrupulous employers.
Congress does not have a set of specific demands it has made to the Government on the issue. An Ictu spokesman said yesterday that its general secretary David Begg had not asked to see legislation that the Government would bring forward to prevent the driving down of wages through the use of foreign labour. "But he needs to see a blueprint" of what the Government is proposing, the spokesman said.
They were not demanding specific measures, but nor did they accept the shoulder-shrugging attitude that there was nothing that could be done. "It's an issue of political imagination and political will," the spokesman said.
The Taoiseach has been anxious to show the Ictu that he is applying the necessary political imagination and political will. After the Ictu decided last month not to engage in new partnership talks until this issue was dealt with, he wrote to them saying that the Government was preparing a range of measures to prevent the replacement of existing jobs with poorer paid jobs.
As Irish Ferries sails on regardless, the Taoiseach has said he would "hope that both parties will respect the decision of the [ Labour] court".
The unions want to hear more than the Taoiseach's hope for a good outcome. And until they do, the prospect of an end to the social partnership process, whose beginning coincided with Ireland's economic turnaround, remains very real.