More than 1,200 working days were lost to industrial disputes in the third quarter of this year, according to data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO).
This was significantly fewer than the 66,826 days lost in the same period last year.
Three disputes involving 116 workers in the administrative and support service activities sector accounted for 69 per cent of the 1,222 days lost in the three months ending September 30th.
A further 379 days were lost in the industry sector, where there was one dispute involving 40 workers.
Three of the four disputes began in the third quarter, while the fourth has been ongoing since the first quarter of this year.
There were 13 disputes in progress in the first nine months of this year with a total of 6,575 days lost compared with 20 disputes and 81,442 days lost for the same period in 2009.