Both sides in the Irish Ferries dispute attended talks for several hours yesterday at the Labour Relations Commission, but a resolution to the row was still not in sight.
More than half the company's 1,200 staff have been laid off and all the company's services remain cancelled as a result of the strike by ship officers, which began on Monday.
Their union, SIPTU, and management accepted an invitation to attend the LRC yesterday for "exploratory talks". There were no negotiations, as each side simply outlined its position to the commission.
The strike - which SIPTU describes as a "lock-out" following Irish Ferries' decision to cancel services on Sunday in advance of industrial action commencing - is in response to the company's decision to outsource employment next year on its service between Rosslare and Cherbourg, in France.
The move would save the company €3.5 million on a route that had become loss-making due to increased competition from low-cost airlines and a state-subsidised sea competitor, Brittany Ferries. SIPTU official Mr Paul Smyth said the union had told the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) yesterday it was prepared to discuss cost-cutting measures on the route, other than outsourcing. These would generate savings for the company, "although we could not get costs down to the cut-throat level proposed by management".
The union also wanted the Government to explore ways it could "support Irish sea-faring jobs" through, for example, providing funding for training, he said.
Irish Ferries says it has not seen any proposals from the union that would generate cost-savings close to those it can achieve through outsourcing. Most of the 150 crew members who worked on the Rosslare-Cherbourg route this year have already taken voluntary redundancy, at a cost to the company of €8 million, it says.
The business and employers' body, IBEC, yesterday expressed "serious concern" about the impact of the dispute during the busy Christmas season. "A major concern for IBEC is the disruptive impact of the SIPTU action on trade movements across the Irish Sea, with over 10 per cent of total freight liable to be affected," it said in a statement.
