A High Court challenge is to be taken on Monday by the union representing staff engaged in a dispute with the Department of Agriculture and Food over promotional opportunities.
More than 250 staff have been picketing local offices of the Department in Cos Mayo, Galway, Limerick, Kerry and Cork since they were removed from the payroll for refusing to handle telephone queries and limiting the time spent on front counter duties.
A judicial review of their suspension is to be sought in the court by the Civil and Public Services' Union, which claims the decision to take them off the payroll was unlawful.
Delegates to the union's annual conference in Tralee expressed strong support for their suspended colleagues yesterday during a special debate.
Speakers said the union should continue to fight the two-month-old dispute for as long as it took to win it.
Farmers in the west of Ireland have been hit by a withdrawal of services arising from the dispute, which began in mid-March but worsened dramatically on April 1st, when the Department began removing staff from the payroll. Negotiations with the CPSU had been arranged for the next day.
Mr Blair Horan, the union's general secretary, said the union had "deep pockets" with which to fight the dispute and was making its full resources available to the members involved.
Announcing the High Court challenge, he said staff had been removed from the payroll under Section 16 of the 1956 Civil Service Regulation Act.
"This section deals with an unauthorised absence from duty. Clearly, members were not absent from duty while engaged in a limited form of industrial action."
The legal challenge is being taken on behalf of Ms Marie Fuller and 13 of her colleagues currently suspended from the Department's office in Clonakilty, Co Cork, the home town of the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh.
Mr Horan said the industrial action had followed two years of fruitless negotiations to address the "dire" lack of promotional opportunities for CPSU members in the Department's local offices, which compared "very unfavourably" with other large Government departments.
One of the 262 staff currently suspended, Mr James O'Malley, who is based in Castlebar, Co Mayo, said people did not want to retire "at the same desk, at the same grade, doing the same work they've been doing for the past 20 years".