It will be of little comfort to the people in the west and south of Ireland that the train dispute which has been dragging on for over 50 days is more of an inconvenience than a problem in the midlands.
And those who would see the leader of the dispute, Brendan Ogle, as some kind of hate figure will be disappointed to learn that he is still quite a popular man in his adopted town, Athlone.
Even casual acquaintances in the town had nothing but good to say about the strike leader, and while most disagreed with what he and his colleagues were doing, none would say a hard word about the man.
Malcolm Byrne, of the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland, has for some weeks been studying the impact the strike is having in the State and it was he who confirmed that in the midlands there is inconvenience but no real problems.
"Commuters are the hardest hit in this dispute because of the disruption to the services, but midlanders are lucky in so far as they have a number of services running through their area," he said.
"Fortunately, the midlands are close to the city and industry in the area is not reliant on trains at all. Most of the goods come down here by road," he said.
In Portlaoise, he said, a number of companies who had been using Iarnrod Eireann freight services had switched to courier services in recent weeks.
"What has happened is that there has been quite a dramatic increase in road traffic generated by the dispute as people from the west and south have had to take to the roads," he said.
A check with the main tourism sites in the area found that they had not suffered because of the dispute - only a small part of their business is train-related.
Carmel Duffy, of Athlone and District Tourism, said it was fortunate for the area that the tourism enterprises did not rely on trains.
"Most of our patrons come from Dublin or overseas, either by car, hired car or coaches. The train input is very low.
"For instance, the hostel here does not operate in the winter and is used for student accommodation," she said.
"However, train strikes like this one create a bad impression for foreign visitors, who must wonder how we are running our country," she said.
"It is difficult when you are trying to create a good impression and something like this happens.
"It does not help our tourism image," she said.
According to Ursula Farrell of Tullamore Chamber of Commerce, the dispute has brought into sharp focus the need for more parking bays in the town.
"We have done some work on the impact of the dispute and there is very little because local firms here do not rely on the trains to carry goods," she said.
"But it has highlighted the need for more unloading bays because most goods come into this area on trucks or by courier services.
"We are currently in negotiation with the council to have more provided."
Fine Gael TD Mr Tom Enright said the dispute had not hit local business but he added that there was a lot of inconvenience for commuters and casual travellers to Dublin and elsewhere.
"I have to praise the Iarnrod Eireann staff for the way they have been helping the travelling public, but even with the best will in the world, people are being forced to wait for trains and no one has been quite sure in the last few weeks whether a train will come or not," he said.