Today's threatened strike by ambulance controllers has been deferred to allow for Labour Court intervention, writes Padraig Yeates, Industry and Employment Correspondent. The controllers agreed to defer the action at a meeting in St James's Hospital, Dublin, yesterday.
If it had gone ahead ambulance services in the Eastern Health Board area would have been seriously disrupted.
The deferral followed contacts between the controllers' union, IMPACT, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Labour Relations Commission.
The controllers agreed to a referral of their case to the Labour Court, which is expected to hear it later this week.
The union had always indicated its willingness to enter further talks. But the amount of discretion available to the court in resolving the problem appears very limited.