The Army will assist residents in Ballymun today, carrying groceries and helping with other non-technical services following an escalation of the lift dispute yesterday.
Up to 20 soldiers from the 5th Infantry Batallion based at McKee Barracks will assist residents between 9.30 a.m. and 8 p.m., focusing on the elderly, the disabled and mothers with buggies who, with lifts out of operation, have to climb up to 13 storeys to their flats.
A similar number of soldiers from the 2nd Field Artillery Regiment will operate the same service tomorrow from an office in the Ballymun Shopping Centre.
None of the soldiers, however, will assist in the repair of lifts, some of which have been broken for over two months.
The move follows the announcement yesterday by striking lift workers that they were withdrawing emergency repairs services which they had been carrying out free of charge for over a week.
Dublin Corporation last night issued an appeal to the Departments of Defence and the Environment for non-technical assistance for the stranded residents. The Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, had already indicated the Army would be willing to help residents if asked to do so.
Mr Sean O Cionnaith, chairman of Ballymun Better Lifts Service Campaign, said residents welcomed the Army's assistance, but said it was "no answer to the real problem". He said only 35 of Ballymun's 73 lifts were working on Thursday, with just 27 working last night. "That number could possibly slip to zero over the next seven days."
He criticised both sides in the dispute, Pickerings Lifts, which are contracted by the Corporation to service the area, and the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union, representing the workers, for failing to negotiate a compromise or exempt Ballymun from the dispute.
More than 2,814 flats and an estimated 6,000 residents are serviced by the lifts.
