DART drivers have served formal notice of industrial action, including all-out strike action, to begin in less than a fortnight.
Disruption of services is set to start on Monday, September 6th, the day Iarnrod Eireann begins a 16-week training and testing programme for eight new drivers on the extended DART service to Greystones, Co Wicklow, and from Howth Junction to Malahide, Co Dublin.
The dispute centres around direct recruitment of new DART drivers, and the extension of the DART service.
Mr John Keenan, Iarnrod Eireann's human resources manager, said the company had received notice from SIPTU and the NBRU that their 55 members had voted by a "substantial majority" to reject the Labour Court recommendation which called for the company to pay an ex-gratia lump sum of £8,000 to each serving DART driver.
The unions were seeking £11,000 per DART driver, in line with the £11,000 paid out to locomotive drivers. They were paid a lump sum when the company "bought out" a productivity agreement under which DART drivers could be recruited solely from established locomotive diesel drivers employed by Iarnrod Eireann.
Mr Keenan said yesterday that if a DART driver was available to test the extended service to Greystones, they could have a limited train service to the Co Wicklow town in four to six weeks and once the new drivers were trained that service could be extended.
The "bottom line is that the DART drivers are holding the Greystones service to ransom", said Mr Keenan, and training had been delayed since January.
Representatives from SIPTU and the National Bus and Railworkers' Union could not be contacted last night for comment.