Hauliers at Dublin Port have agreed to postpone a decision about a work stoppage during the international Tall Ships festival. Mr John Guilfoyle, president of the Irish Road Haulage Association, said at the weekend that haulage companies would make a final decision on Thursday about a withdrawal of services.
The dispute could cause serious disruption at the port. Thousands of visitors are expected to see about 97 vessels involved in the international race. Most vessels will be moored along the quays between the East Link toll bridge and the Matt Talbot Bridge at the Customs House.
The IRHA has outlined a series of grievances it wants addressed to avert a stoppage and potential chaos at the port on the two days originally earmarked by the hauliers for a two-day stoppage, August 24th and 25th.
The contentious issues include traffic congestion, lengthy waiting times to load and unload containers, long delays in processing paperwork, lack of action in eradicating illegal haulage operators, lack of facilities at the port and toll charges.
At the request of the Department of Public Enterprise, Mr Guilfoyle said the IRHA had agreed to wait until Thursday to see if "meaningful progress" could be made in negotiations.
He was speaking following a three-hour meeting on Saturday of about 50 IRHA members who operate from Dublin Port. "Everyone in the meeting is agreed that unless there are genuinely meaningful negotiations between now and Thursday the planned action will go ahead."
This was not a threat, he said, but "a statement of fact". The planned action is the withdrawal of services by up to 200 hauliers at the port and the parking of their vehicles there. Mr Guilfoyle insisted it was a protest, not a blockade.
It is understood that the Department has brought in a private mediator, Mr Stephen Treacy, who mediated in the last haulage dispute at the port in June 1997. Mr Guilfoyle said the hauliers had tried for months to meet the shippers involved in the port to address their grievances and had been consistently "fobbed off".