UP TO 15,000 rail users face disruption today as an unofficial industrial dispute involving Iarnród Éireann drivers in Cork looks set to continue. Many mainline and all commuter services in Munster are expected to be cancelled.
Iarnród Éireann said 7,000 passengers were affected yesterday by the industrial action.
Fears are growing that the dispute may escalate to other parts of the country.
Nearly a dozen services between Dublin and Cork, as well as one service to Tralee, did not operate yesterday.
Commuter services on the Cork-Cobh and Cork-Mallow lines were also hit.
A spokesman for Iarnród Éireann said the company was pessimistic about the dispute being resolved in the short term, and warned that services were likely to be affected again tomorrow.
Services due to be cancelled today include the 9.30am Cork-Heuston service. The 10.30am and 11.30am Cork-Heuston trains were expected to operate from Mallow only, with bus transfers from Cork to Mallow, Iarnród Éireann said.
All Cork-Cobh and Cork-Mallow commuter services were expected to be cancelled, and customers were advised to make alternative arrangements.
Union sources last night said senior management at Iarnród Éireann had orchestrated the dispute in Cork yesterday, and appealed to the company to take steps to resolve the row before it escalated.
Management has strongly denied this allegation. Services to and from Cork were hit after drivers in the depot - members of the National Bus and Rail Union and Siptu - refused to operate trains in support of a colleague who was taken off the payroll yesterday morning.
Management said the driver concerned had been rostered yesterday to work in the depot or on any other duty as required. However, the driver had refused to operate a service that was being used to train new drivers, and he was removed from the payroll.
Siptu Cork No 5 branch secretary John Pearson said: "What we would be advocating is that the driver would be put back on the payroll - and we can discuss the wider issue at a later stage - but that would allow everybody to return to work and services to be restored."
However, Iarnród Éireann said the developments in Cork followed "several months of non-co-operation by drivers with the training of new trainee drivers, and numerous instances of refusing to drive trains within normal core rosters".
It said these duties were core parts of drivers' terms of employment, and the refusal to undertake them resulted in the unnecessary cancellation of services.
The company said the situation had deteriorated recently and had become unsustainable. The decision was taken yesterday to remove the driver in Cork from the payroll "to prevent the situation from descending into anarchy".
Iarnród Éireann said the actions over recent months by drivers were aimed at putting pressure on talks on a reduction in working hours. These talks have been under way for more than 18 months.