The Labour Court has invited both sides in the six-week-old dispute at National Car Testing Centres Ltd to talks next Tuesday. Due to the disruption caused to testing procedures, the Department of the Environment has allowed motorists who would normally need test certificates to renew their car tax to do so without one.
This decision has put extra pressure on the company to settle because of lost revenue. A spokeswoman for NCT, Ms Samantha Green, said yesterday that 17 of its 43 centres, including two in Dublin, were operating normally.
However, she added that the volume of business was significantly down on the 1,400 car tests and 400 retests normally done each day. Despite this there was no significant backlog.
Ms Green welcomed the court's intervention, as did SIPTU national industrial secretary Mr John Kane. His members in Dublin began unofficial action after Christmas and have been on official strike for the past three weeks. Members at provincial centres joined the strike last week after the failure of talks at the Labour Relations Commission to resolve the dispute.