Air, rail and bus users were still not guaranteed services tomorrow as discussions within SIPTU continued last night.
The union officially had called off a six-hour stoppage planned for Dublin, Cork and Shannon airports from 7.30 a.m. following an intervention by the Taoiseach late on Monday. However, the union's aviation branch officers expressed anger at the decision to cancel the stoppage and did not rule out an unofficial strike.
The union's CIÉ strike committee, meanwhile, was meeting late into the night to decide whether to go ahead with a planned 24-hour public transport strike.
All Bus Éireann, Iarnród Éireann and Dublin Bus services will be cancelled tomorrow if the strike does take place. SIPTU called the two strikes because of the "lack of meaningful progress" in separate talks with the Department of Transport about the futures of Aer Rianta and CIÉ.
The Aer Rianta talks had temporarily stopped while unions awaited key financial information about the planned break-up of the company from the Department of Transport.
In a letter to the SIPTU president, Mr Jack O'Connor, late on Monday, the Taoiseach indicated that unions would get time to examine the information before legislation on the break-up was introduced. This was sufficient for SIPTU's leadership to call off the strike.
The decision was announced in the High Court, where Ryanair was about to begin a challenge to force the union to cancel the action. It was greeted with anger, however, by the union's aviation branch officers and shop stewards.
At a meeting attended by Mr O'Connor yesterday afternoon, they insisted that further clarification be sought from Mr Ahern, who was en route to Washington for his St Patrick's Day meeting with President Bush.
Mr Barry Nevin, the aviation branch president, said a specific guarantee was required that no legislation on the break-up of Aer Rianta would be published until unions had time to consider the financial information sought. In addition, a commitment was being sought from the Taoiseach that any change to the dual gateway status of Shannon Airport would be phased in over an extended period, of perhaps six to ten years. He said workers hoped to get those clarifications last night, once Mr Ahern had arrived in Washington. "If we get them, no action will take place on Thursday."
Asked if an unofficial stoppage would take place, should Mr Ahern fail to provide the commitments sought, Mr Nevin said that decision would be taken when necessary. A spokeswoman for the Government said Mr Ahern was being briefed on the situation.
In his letter to Mr O'Connor on Monday, the Taoiseach also promised engagement with unions about their concerns that the planned reforms of Aer Rianta and CIÉ should not result in a "race to the bottom" in terms of employment standards.
Senior union officials regarded the commitment as significant and hoped it would be enough to persuade SIPTU's CIÉ strike committee to call off its planned bus and rail strike. After more than six hours, however, the committee had still not taken a decision.
Iarnród Éireann and Bus Éireann both issued statements warning that services could not be guaranteed. Dublin Bus has said that 500,000 customers would be affected.
The employers' body, IBEC, called for a ban on industrial action affecting essential services. It said unions had given a commitment to enter negotiations to protect essential services by September 2003, but had "failed to honour this commitment".
