'No more disruption to train services' say unions and Irish Rail

Unions and management at Irish Rail say there will not be any further disruption to train services now that their dispute has been referred to the Labour Court.

Planned industrial action was called off in the early hours of this morning, at around 4 a.m this morning.

The row centres on payment for past productivity, and has been ongoing for almost ten years.

Irish Rail have said 40,000 passengers would have been affected by a strike this morning, and apologised for the late notice it was cancelled.

But many passengers have told the media it is not good enough, citing a number of issues such as not being reimbursed for expensive monthly tickets and the late notice of the services running today.

Update 12 noon: The move towards theLabour Court does not signal any thawing of relations between the unions and irish Rail management, however, as NBRU general secretary Dermot O'Leary sharply criticised bosses in a statement after last night's talks.

He said: "The decision taken by the trade unions in the early hours of this morning to withdraw from the process was in response to the complete and utter disdain shown by the company towards our members' legitimate agenda items of past productivity and a reduction of the working week.

"Having decided to reclaim ownership of those issues, we have now decided to place them before the Labour Court for consideration.

"It is unfortunate that the Company are continuing with this falsehood that our members have somehow lost out on a 7.9% pay rise when the fact of the matter is that any such improvements could only come on the back of train drivers themselves generating the necessary productivity to finance any pay improvement.

"This is of course systematic of the way the Company have been conducting industrial relations over the last two years."