Iarnrod Eireann is planning a new train schedule in anticipation of a continuation of the dispute with the ILDA group of drivers, which is now entering its third month.
Three ILDA drivers have returned to work this week, in Inchicore, Sligo and Mullingar, and although the company expects more drivers to return on a weekly basis, it also expects the "situation" to continue for some time.
Full services are expected to operate today on the Galway, Waterford, Belfast, Rosslare and Sligo routes as well as the DART, Maynooth and Arklow services. A two-thirds service is expected on the suburban service to Drogheda/Dundalk. Two trains will continue to operate each way between Dublin and Claremorris, Co Mayo, with a bus transfer to Castlebar and Westport.
Half the trains on the Kildare service will operate while 15 out of 16 services will run each way on the Cork/Cobh line. Seven services will operate between Cork and Dublin while nine will operate in the other direction. Dublin to Tralee will have five trains and three from Tralee to Dublin, with eight trains on the Dublin to Limerick route, and seven in the other direction.
Following rejection by ILDA members of a return to work pending an investigation into their grievances by the Labour Court and the Labour Relations Commission, attitudes are hardening. On the basis that the joint Labour Court/LRC initiative was "the only show in town", Iarnrod Eireann is reviewing the service it offers and hopes to have a new schedule in place by the end of next month or early October.
ILDA executive members could not be contacted for their response.
"It is a situation that is going to run for some time, based on the presumed rejection of the Labour Court/Labour Relations Commission initiative by Brendan Ogle and the ILDA executive," said Mr John Keenan, Iarnrod Eireann's human resources manager.
"The longer this dispute goes on the more we have to shape our business to the resources that are available. We are looking at resources and looking into the distance, short-term, to reshape the business to fit those resources. We timetabled services and committed ourselves to services which we cannot meet."
Mr Keenan said the company was "in the foothills" of this reshaping but hoped to have a new schedule of services in place for the end of next month or early October, depending on the number of drivers at work. He stressed that there would be no adverse effect on the contracts already agreed with SIPTU and NBRU members.
He said Mr Ogle should have asked the drivers to vote on one issue only, a return to work and the LRC/Labour Court initiative. Instead, he asked them to vote on the initiative, on 10 conditions which had to be addressed before they could return to work and on the new deal which had been agreed by SIPTU and the NBRU.
He said the company would enhance its driver-training programme which would last 53 weeks. The standard training programme in Europe was 36 weeks.
He said that for each of the past two years 33 drivers had been trained and the company hoped to have 44 trainees in the next programme.
He said it was "symptomatic of the leadership [ILDA] that confusion is the order of the day. They are obscuring the initiative with another agenda."
Earlier a company spokesman rejected the ILDA concerns about safety as "a smokescreen designed to obscure their true agenda". He said the leading independent rail safety experts in Europe, Halcrow, had fully validated the service.
