Iarnród Éireann has warned that several thousand train passengers face "significant" disruption again tomorrow as a result of unofficial industrial action by drivers.
The company said that it expected that there would be further disruption on the Dublin-Cork and Dublin-Kerry routes as well as on commuter services in the south. However it said it anticipated the situation in the west would improve.
It said that other services on the Cork route would have bus transfers between Cork and Mallow.
Around 20,000 passengers were affected today as a result of the cancellation of 30 services between Dublin, Cork, Galway, Westport and Athlone.
Train drivers in Cork, where the current dispute started on Thursday before spreading to the west, submitted proposals to Iarnród Éireann today for a return to work. However these were rejected by the company.
The assistant general secretary of the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU), Dermot O'Leary said the drivers had proposed returning to normal rostered duties in return for a meeting without preconditions between trade unions and the company on all the issues at the centre of the dispute.
He said that this formula could have allowed train services to resume almost immediately.
However Iarnród Éireann said that the drivers were offering an unconditional return to work with conditions attached and that this was "unacceptable".
The company said that in looking for unconditional talks, the drivers were seeking to re-open the deal on flexibility for which they had been paid in 2000.
The NBRU said that it did not condone unofficial action by drivers and that it had kept the Labour Relations Commission briefed on the dispute.
The unofficial industrial action was criticised today by both Fine Gael and Labour.
Labour's transport spokesman Tommy Broughan said that the disruption to passengers was deplorable but that it was strange that no action had been taken by any industrial relations agency to sort out the row before
it escalated.
Olivia Mitchell of Fine Gael said the dispute - at the start of the summer tourist season - could not have come at a worst time for the tourist industry.
Full details of all cancellations and disruptions are available on the Iarnród Éireann website.
