Plans for renewed industrial action by transport workers were endorsed yesterday by one of the biggest unions in CIÉ.
The National Bus and Rail Union (NBRU), which represents more than 3,000 workers in the three CIÉ companies, also announced it was pulling out of discussions with the Department of Transport.
At a meeting in Dublin, the union's national executive mandated its officers to take "whatever industrial action they feel is necessary" to protect the pay, conditions and job security of members.
The NBRU will meet with other unions, including SIPTU, tomorrow to draw up a co-ordinated campaign of action. This is expected to begin within the next fortnight and is likely to involve disruption of both bus and rail public transport.
A series of stoppages, following a "no-fares day" last July, had been announced by the unions in response to plans by the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, to break up CIÉ and increase competition.
The campaign was deferred, however, to allow talks to take place between the unions and officials in Mr Brennan's department. The two sides had been due to meet again next week.
The unions' decision to resume the campaign follows interviews given by the Minister in the run-up to Christmas, in which he reaffirmed his plans to dismantle CIÉ and privatise bus routes.
The Minister has since restated his commitment to negotiations with the unions, and also defended his right to outline his public transport policies.
However, the NBRU general secretary, Mr Liam Tobin, said yesterday that the Department's discussions with the unions had "lost all credibility".
"On the one hand, we have the officials telling us one thing in talks and, on the other, the Minister, Séamus Brennan, is telling the media something completely different.
"It would be neither honest nor practical nor fair to our members to continue with the charade of negotiations while the Minister presses ahead with his own agenda regardless of what takes place at those talks."
The NBRU, he said, remained available for talks, but only if they were facilitated by an independent chairman.
A call for the Taoiseach to intervene to get the talks restarted was issued by the Labour Party spokeswoman on transport, Ms Róisín Shortall. She said the NBRU's decision to withdraw from discussions was regrettable but not surprising, given Mr Brennan's recent "provocative comments". She urged unions, however, to show restraint and not to do anything that would deprive commuters of essential public transport services.
Mr Tobin said the "tragedy" was that a basis did exist for finding a way forward - through the Public Transport Forum, a social partnership body set up under the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. He claimed Mr Brennan seemed determined "to bin the forum report, and the partnership approach on which it was based, for reasons best known to himself".
