The Department of Public Enterprise is organising bilateral meetings with hauliers, shippers, IBEC and the Dublin Port authorities to avert a work stoppage by haulage companies during the International Tall Ships Festival in the port next week.
Department officials had a lengthy meeting with representatives of the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA) on Thursday night. Today haulage operators who use Dublin Port will meet to discuss the situation.
A Department spokeswoman declined to give details of the meeting with the IRHA. However, she said everybody hoped to resolve the dispute to avoid the stoppage during the festival.
Some 97 tall ships and other vessels begin arriving in Dublin on Tuesday, and the festival culminates on August 25th with a "parade of sail" when the vessels leave the port in a flotilla.
The IRHA has outlined grievances which it said were having a huge impact on the viability of haulage companies. They include traffic congestion, lengthy waiting times to load and unload containers, inconsistencies in processing paperwork, a lack of action in eradicating illegal haulage operators, a lack of facilities at the port and toll charges.
"The Dublin traffic situation and the legal licensing of hauliers have little to do with industry. We are not enforcers of road and traffic regulations," said Ms Karen Gannon, assistant director of transport policy at IBEC, the employers' group which represents some major operators at the port.
A Government-sponsored review of the transport industry, established after a strike by hauliers in June last year, is due to finish in December. Ms Gannon said the review had a very major part to play "and it is not a good idea to pre-empt its conclusions".
The review was established by the Department of Public Enterprise because of complaints raised by the haulage companies, the same complaints in the current dispute. Ms Gannon said since the strike some improvements had been made by companies and the IRHA should wait for the outcome of the review.
However, the president of the IRHA, Mr John Guilfoyle, said the promises made after the dispute last year had not been kept by between 60 per cent and 70 per cent of shippers at Dublin Port.
"IBEC needs haulage as much as haulage needs them," said Mr Guilfoyle. "All we're asking for is to be treated properly. We don't want three- and four-hour delays before loading or unloading. These delays have severe effects on companies.
"It is not costing companies one extra penny to load or unload a vehicle when it arrives. We're just asking companies to be more efficient in the way they treat hauliers. A container arrives at a premises and the haulier sometimes has to wait three and four hours - half a day - before the vehicle is unloaded. That cuts his productivity and his money in half. If he planned to do four loads in a day, he can now only do two."
"We have never said that we would blockade the tall ships. We don't want to interfere with the event, but we have to focus on some event to get meaningful negotiations going."
