The Minister for Public Enterprise, Mrs O'Rourke, will meet a Kerry rail lobby group in Cahirciveen today to discuss the effects of the train dispute on the Kerry region.
The Killarney Rail Action Group has claimed business in Killarney is down by 20 per cent due to the rail dispute. The group has appealed to the Irish Locomotive Drivers' Association members to go back to work and is seeking a meeting with drivers' representatives.
"Already we have lost 5 per cent of our annual income," the group's chairman, Mr Neilus Moriarty, said, and "if it continues for the month of August we will lose a further 5 per cent." The group said the Kerry region has lost £25 million in revenue as a result of the rail dispute.
"As well, there have been a huge number of cases of social hardship over the past six weeks. People have been unable to keep health appointments to visit sick relatives and friends," Mr Moriarty said.
Ms Breda Moynihan-Cronin, Labour TD for South Kerry, said elderly people and cancer patients had been forced to depend on friends and family to drive them to Dublin for hospital appointments.
The only solution was to sit down and talk. "The rail line for south Kerry is a necessity, not a luxury," she said. The Killarney group has called for a state of emergency to be declared: "It is amazing that an essential public service can be out of commission for 45 days and a state of emergency has not been declared," a statement said yesterday.
A delegation from the group and Mr Jackie Healy-Rae TD met senior Iarnrod Eireann officials at the Devon Inn in Co Limerick yesterday.