Train drivers who were involved in lengthy industrial action four years ago have been awarded hundreds of thousands of euro in unemployment benefit in a landmark ruling by the Social Welfare Tribunal.
Last week the tribunal, which rules on cases where social welfare payments are refused, found that the drivers who were involved in a 10-week dispute with Iarnród Éireann should received unemployment benefit for eight of those weeks.
It has been estimated the cost to the State could be €300,000.
Mr Brendan Ogle, the leader of the former Irish Locomotive Drivers' Association (ILDA), said last night that the ruling vindicated its stance that the dispute occurred as result of the Iarnród Éireann acting unreasonably.
He said that under legislation there was no entitlement to social welfare benefits for anyone involved in an industrial dispute unless they could prove that they had been "unreasonably denied" employment.
Mr Ogle said ILDA members had always been available for work, and the association had done everything possible before and during the dispute to prevent and resolve it.
However, Iarnród Éireann management is understood to be furious at the ruling of the tribunal, which is made up of an independent chairman and two nominees of both the ICTU and the employer group IBEC.
The Sunday Tribune yesterday reported that management at Iarnród Éireann considered the ruling "impossible to fathom".
The company argued that the dispute was an unofficial dispute, not a lock-out, and that this view had been supported by the Labour Court and Labour Relations Commission.
