Tenants in the Ballymun tower blocks in Dublin may be trained to service and repair the lifts themselves as a result of the 71-day strike there which has seen young mothers with shopping and elderly people forced to climb up to fifteen flights of stairs.
The tenants may be offered the £1 million-a-year contract to maintain their own lifts after the national lifts strike ends. Dublin Corporation is in preliminary discussions with local community activists about the possibility of establishing a co-operative and inviting FAS to provide the necessary training.
The chairman of Ballymun Better Lifts Campaign, Mr Sean O Cionnaith, said the proposal was a serious one and the corporation was treating it as such. He renewed his call for the parties in the dispute to "negotiate a settlement that will avert any further hardship to the tenants. Failing that, they should exempt Ballymun from the dispute."
The principal officer of Dublin Corporation's housing and community services department, Mr Brendan Kenny, confirmed that it was willing to consider offering the lift maintenance contract to the community. He described the current strike as "a disaster".
"We have been damaged big time by something we have no control over," he said. "There are a lot of unemployed people in Ballymun. We may be able to set up a local co-operative, with the help of the community and FAS.
"We would be only too delighted if such a co-operative could take over the lifts." However, he added that a co-operative would not be a short-term option. The maintenance firm, Pickerings, has a three-year contract, which lasts until 2000.
The Minister of State for Labour Affairs, Mr Tom Kitt, met union and employer representatives yesterday to take soundings on new settlement proposals. He is expected to meet them again today, but there is little optimism for an early breakthrough.
Yesterday it even looked as if the dispute might escalate as strikers put temporary pickets on the corporation's electrical department in Marrowbone Lane and on a store containing spare parts for the lifts in Ballymun.
The main outstanding issue is payment for travelling time. The employers say they have already accepted two Labour Court awards that will increase their pay bill by about 17.5 per cent and they are unwilling to concede any more.