Rail services on some lines reduced by more than half

Commuters will face further considerable disruption over the bank holiday weekend as the continuing rail dispute sees services on some lines reduced by more than half.

The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, again ruled out intervening in the dispute as it entered its 49th day.

"There can be no intervention. I cannot intervene . . . I cannot act in contempt of a court order," she told reporters after she met the Killarney Rail Action Group in Cahirciveen, Co Kerry, where she is on holiday.

Ms O'Rourke accused the Irish Locomotive Drivers' Association (ILDA) members of "holding the country to ransom". The action group claims the dispute has cost Killarney £25 million in lost revenue.

She said the one third of train drivers who were ILDA members were holding "the other two-thirds, the country and tourists up to ransom".

Hopes for resolving the dispute last night centred on the possibility of third-party intervention.

The president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Ms Inez McCormack, called for a third-party mediator to resolve the dispute. "I think we need some form of external mediator to come in and try and sort this out," she told RTE radio.

Describing the suggestion as "very helpful", the executive secretary of the ILDA, Mr Brendan Ogle, said his members would be available to Ms McCormack to advance the idea.

However, the suggestion was rejected by an Iarnrod Eireann spokesman, who said the issue did not arise as no third-party mediator had been offered and the company had "had no contact from Congress".

He described yesterday's protests as a "last desperate attempt [by the ILDA] to bully their way to union recognition".

Clarifying her position after the radio interview, Ms McCormack said she was not offering mediation, but calling for it.

"I would strongly support mediation to help them return to work with dignity. But not as a negotiating tool to reopen the debate on recognition and the terms of the agreement," she said.

The worst-affected line today will be the service between Dublin and Limerick, where the usual 11 to 12 services daily each way have been reduced to five in each direction.

The Dublin/Cork line and the suburban Dublin/Drogheda and Dublin/Dundalk lines will also be badly hit. However, a full service will operate on the Galway, Belfast, Rosslare and Sligo routes, according to Iarnrod Eireann.

Bus Eireann has hired 100 private coaches to cope with the anticipated bank holiday weekend demand, a company spokesman said yesterday.

Some 95 of a total of 128 ILDA members are continuing to refuse to work new roster arrangements which have been accepted by SIPTU and the National Bus and Rail Union. Mr Ogle said working the new rosters "was not an option" because of safety concerns.

Most Iarnrod Eireann employees have been passing the pickets. Four scheduled inter-city services - between Dublin and Galway, and Limerick - were cancelled yesterday, as were seven DART services and two suburban trains between Dublin and Drogheda.

All other trains on the reduced service ran as scheduled, but were heavily booked. The ILDA did not picket Dublin Bus depots yesterday.

Train services to Galway were hit for the first time in weeks yesterday as a result of the picket in Heuston Station in Dublin. Co Mayo still bears the brunt of the strike in the west, with almost no train service to and from Westport and Ballina in seven weeks.

An early-morning picket outside Limerick delayed two trains leaving the city for Dublin yesterday morning.

Unconfirmed figures for Cork suggested the number of people taking the train was down 50 per cent on a normal bank holiday weekend.

According to an Iarnrod Eireann spokesman, the company would usually have nine trains in and out of Cork, each carrying around 500 passengers, but the ILDA action reduced this to six trains in from Dublin and four trains out from Cork.

South Kerry Independent TD Mr Jackie Healy-Rae said the Army should be brought in to end the dispute.

"There was never a bigger emergency than we have in the south of Ireland today," he said. "I don't care if you brought the German army in to solve it. Do something."