The ongoing disruption to rail services in the southwest caused by unofficial industrial action by some Irish Rail train drivers is now threatening one of the biggest weekends in Cork's annual tourist calendar.

SIPTU's John Pierson pictured outside the talks involving management and unions at Irish Rail, aimed at ending the dispute that has halted Cork rail services, in Mallow yesterday. Picture: Daragh Mac Sweeney/Provision

Major events taking place during the weekend in Cork including the Cork City Marathon, Ocean to City Race, Bandon Music Festival and Cobh Maritime Festival are all threatened with lower than expected numbers if rail services to Cork remain suspended.

As of Wednesday this week, it was not possible to book tickets to travel to Cork online as management at Irish Rail could not be sure that trains would run during the weekend. The failure to resolve the issue by the weekend is also likely to have a knock-on effect on road traffic in and out of Cork.

Talks which are ongoing in Mallow at the time of writing have indicated that a solution may be found to the dispute but not concrete proposals have yet been made. The talks are being chaired by the Labour Relations Commission.

Criticism of the dispute, in particular the striking drivers has been widespread in Cork. Donal Healy of the Cork Business Association described the strike as "very disappointing". Speaking to the Cork Independent he said, "More than 50,000 people have been seriously inconvenienced by this so far. We can only hope it is resolved in the near future".

Conor Healy, Chief Executive at the Cork Chamber stressed that part of the resolution must include a clause to prevent unofficial strikes in the future. He told the Cork Independent, "We should never again be in this position where unofficial action can have such an impact. Official action is something entirely different but this is entirely unacceptable.

"There's a lot happening right across the county during what is one of the busiest weekends of the year. There has been a lot of effort put into marketing Cork around the country as well. We don't want to see a situation where people who had decided to give Cork a try for the weekend decide not to come because of the rail strike."

A spokesperson for the Cork Marketing Partnership which is behind a television advertising campaign promoting Cork said, "It's an unfortunate set of circumstances coming up to the Bank Holiday weekend, but we would hope that people will be able to find some alternative means of transport and that they will make their way to Cork to enjoy all the various activities over the weekend".

Andrew Roche, Iarnród Éireann's manager in Cork emphasised that passengers should refer to the Irish Rail website for the latest information at www.irishrail.ie or by calling 1850 366 2222. He said that the company regretted the inconvenience caused to passengers and was working to reach a solution as quickly as possible.

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