Employers in the long-running dispute over lifts at the Ballymun high-rise flats complex in Dublin yesterday accepted in full recommendations from the Labour Court aimed at resolving the problem. The dispute has been going on since July 13th last.
A statement from the employers' body, IBEC, said members of the union involved, the TEEU, should also accept the recommendations of the court in full settlement of a dispute which has caused widespread inconvenience and disruption.
The union could not be contacted last night for its reaction to the latest recommendations but it is expected to ballot its members on them.
Army personnel have been deployed in Ballymun to help residents whose lifts are out of order. Some blocks are 15-storeys high and members of the 2nd Field Artillery Regiment spent the weekend carrying shopping and babies up and down the stairs. The corporation asked the Government to call in the troops on Friday.
Striking lift engineers decided last week to remove emergency repair cover for the lifts.
Early last June, a dispute arose between Pickering Lifts, contractors to the corporation, and its employees. On August 15th, the High Court refused an application by the residents that the corporation be directed to ensure the Ballymun lifts be repaired but this order was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court.