Government bring in IBEC and ICTU in bid to avoid airport strikes

The Government has launched its latest bid to avoid a crippling strike at the country's three biggest airports.

It is consulting with trade unions and employers' groups to try to avoid a strike by workers at Aer Lingus and the DAA.

Workers were due to go on strike for four hours on March 14 - the Friday morning before the St Patrick's Day weekend - in a dispute over their pension fund.

However, Transport Minister Leo Varadkar says he now hopes SIPTU will put the strike on hold while talks continue.

"The Government has come together with the employers' body IBEC and the trade union umbrella group ICTU to put together a panel of experts agreed by all sides who can study the issues relating to the pension funds at the airports and come up with a solution," he said.

"And on foot of that, we're asking SIPTU to call off the strike."

The panel members are: Brendan McGinty and Laura Gallagher (KPMG), and Peter McLoone and Mr Eugene McMahon (Mazars).

The panel is being asked to make a preliminary report to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, IBEC and Congress (ICTU) by the end of the month.

The panel has been given the following terms of reference:

* To identify the areas of agreement and disagreement between the parties in the context of the terms of Labour Court Recommendation (CCC-125984-12) in the case of the DAA and (CCC-094293-10) in the case of Aer Lingus);

* Take account of the terms and impact of the IASS trustee proposal, which has recently emerged on the 14 February 2014, on those Labour Court Recommendations; and

* To identify how those industrial relations issues can be resolved.