No logic to workers' stoppage, says Ahern

TAOISEACH Bertie Ahern last night lashed out at striking bus and rail workers who brought public transport to a standstill yesterday.

Speaking after 9,000 CIÉ workers staged a four-hour nationwide stoppage, leaving thousands of commuters and travellers stranded, Mr Ahern said he could not see any justification for industrial action.

"If people were really in that much urgency to get on with talks they could have talked at the weekend," he said, adding that he was at a bit of a loss to understand the logic behind the union's decision to strike.

"They had a process, a chairman, an independent talks process. I don't understand the logic," he said.

Yesterday's stoppage was supported by SIPTU and the National Bus and Railworkers' Union (NBRU). Both unions said workers were angered at the failure of Transport Minister Séamus Brennan to announce talks on the break-up of CIÉ. However, Mr Ahern said the Government was not responsible for any delay. "Neither the minister nor the department was responsible for the delay in that process," he said.

With business organisations accusing the CIÉ unions of engaging in malicious and mistaken protests, thousands of workers marched in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick and other towns across the country.

At a 1,000-strong march on Government Buildings in Dublin, leaders of both unions said CIÉ workers were voicing their frustration over the slow pace of talks on the future of the company.

In an open letter to Mr Brennan, the NBRU said it regretted having to resort to mass protest and was willing to be included in any reform of the public transport sector as long as workers were treated as partners.

"Your constant references to the virtues of competition and your emphasis on meeting privatisation deadlines in Dublin Bus have not alone engendered an environment of fear among employees but strongly suggest an ideologically driven agenda," the letter read.

The letter also expressed concern at the manner in which Mr Brennan was awarding new routes to private companies without any form of open tendering.

However, Tánaiste Mary Harney yesterday called the stoppage disappointing and said it demonstrated the importance of competition in the public sector.

The strike also drew scathing criticism from IBEC, the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland and the Dublin City Business Association, which accused the unions of holding the public to ransom.

Chief executive Tom Coffey said the strike was an attempt to prevent the introduction of competition into the public transport market.

In addition, the president of the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland (CCI) Mark Staunton called on the Government to reduce its subvention to CIÉ following yesterday's stoppage and seek to reclaim the cost of strike action from the workers involved.

While no immediate figure was available, a spokesman for Dublin Bus estimated that over €100,000 had been lost in revenues as a result of the strike. Also, Irish Rail and Bus Éireann are understood to have lost hundreds of thousands of euro.

In Cork, 200 bus and rail workers marched on Fianna Fáil headquarters leaving 120 city and suburban buses empty.

In addition, one train to Dublin and 13 commuter trains between Cork, Cobh and Mallow were cancelled.

In Waterford, 2,000 passengers were affected by the loss of expressway and city bus services, while trains to and from the city were also cancelled, including four to and from Dublin.

In the rest of the south east, all bus services were cancelled, including inter-city services and Eurostar services from Rosslare.

While disruption in the midlands was minimised because most passengers did not turn up, 90 workers from Limerick station walked out, disrupting trains to Dublin, Cork, Ennis and Ballybrophy.

Expressway bus services were also cancelled to Galway, Cork Shannon and Tralee.

In the west, train services in Galway, Mayo and Westport were also cancelled, while in the north east all inter-city and suburban trains were disrupted.

The Enterprise service to Northern Ireland also saw disruption between Newry and Belfast, while all bus services in or between in Drogheda Dundalk and Navan were also cancelled for a time.