Bus and rail services face serious disruption on Monday following a decision yesterday by the National Bus and Rail Union to stage a day of protest, in its ongoing row with the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan.
The planned action, which took other unions by surprise, is likely to hit off-peak services of the three CIÉ companies, Iarnród Éireann, Dublin Bus and Bus Éireann.
SIPTU has brought forward a meeting of its CIÉ strike committees to today, to decide whether to support the protest.
The NBRU, which also announced a full one-day strike for Monday, February 23rd, rejected a request by the Labour Relations Commission to call off the actions.
The LRC said it was "at a loss to understand" the basis for the threatened disruption.
The NBRU, however, said the strike planned for Monday week could be averted, but this Monday's protest was unavoidable.
Members are being invited to attend protest meetings from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., to include marches in major urban centres.
Services are expected to be disrupted for at least that period of time. The protests, said the union, were being organised because of the "failure" of Mr Brennan to set up a talks process as promised.
Meanwhile, a separate threatened one-day stoppage involving Westport-based train drivers was averted after a dispute over rosters was resolved.
Unions are opposed to the Minister's plans to break up CIÉ and force Dublin Bus to surrender 25 per cent of its routes to private operators. He also wants to increase competition on national bus routes.
After the breakdown of several previous talks processes, unions and the Minister agreed to begin new negotiations at a meeting on January 26th.
The two sides were to agree an independent chair and terms of reference, and the talks were to be conducted "within a tight time frame".
Mr Liam Tobin, the NBRU general secretary, said yesterday that nothing had been heard from the Minister since the January meeting.
A spokesman for Mr Brennan said there had been ongoing contact between the two sides on the matter, and the action announced by the NBRU was "premature".
The unions have proposed Mr Kevin Foley of the Labour Relations Commission as chairman of the talks. It is understood this proposal is acceptable to the Department.
