Travel chaos for 100,000 commuters as buses stop
The strike was called by the National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU) which represents 1,100 of the company’s 2,500 drivers, but their colleagues in Siptu and the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association refused to pass pickets.
The scale of the action took management by surprise. The company says the action is unofficial — a claim disputed by the NBRU — and it had not made contingency plans or ascertained which routes would be left without cover.
Some Translink cross-border buses did operate as well as local services in the North-West and the Cork-Dublin Airport link, but there were virtually no inter-city, suburban, or provincial services anywhere in the country and no city services in Cork, Limerick, or Galway.
Bus Éireann said it believed school transport services would run as normal today, although about 2,500 children in the scheme who use regular buses are likely to be affected. However, the company could offer no absolute guarantee that any of the 114,000 pupils covered by the scheme would get to classes.
Private coach operators put on extra services which helped alleviate the disruption for some of the travelling public yesterday, but those with pre-paid and return tickets for Bus Éireann will be left out of pocket as they are not transferable or refundable.
Both sides in the dispute — which is over plans for €5m worth of cutbacks in the company — said they were open to talks to try to end the strike but no meetings were planned last night.
And while several government ministers called for the sides to get together to thrash out their differences, no mechanism was offered as a way of mediation.
Michael Faherty, general secretary of the NBRU, claimed the Government was thwarting potential talks as Transport Minister Leo Varadkar had stated over the weekend that the union needed to come up with an alternative cost-cutting plan before getting around the table.
“I know that management are as anxious to talk as we are, but there is a political dimension to this,” he said. “If we were invited to talks without any preconditions we would be there. Our members do no want to be on strike. As well as the travelling public suffering, our members will lose wages.”
Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said he wanted to see the two sides get together without delay: “All strikes, all disputes, are ultimately resolved in discussion and negotiation and the sooner that that happens, the better.”
Bus Éireann’s sister companies, Dublin Bus and Irish Rail, are so far unaffected by the strike, but a protracted dispute could raise the prospect of all-out action which would bring chaos to public transport services.
Bus Éireann spokesman Andrew McLindon warned that the company, which is already in severe financial difficulties, stood to lose €200,000 for every day the strike continued.
Fianna Fáil put the blame for failing to avert the action on Transport Minister Leo Varadkar. “It was apparent in recent days that both sides in the dispute were open for talks about finding some sort of resolution, yet no contact was made.”
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