Unions at Iarnrod Eireann have alleged that the company has decided to pull out of the rail freight business and that the decision is to go before the board of CIE for approval on 6 November.
Spokesperson Barry Kenny said that Iarnrod Eireann's rail freight business had been forecast to return a deficit of €14 million this year.
However, last week's closure of IFI would result in a further loss of revenue of between €3.5 and €4 million a year. He described the loss of IFI, one of the company's major freight customers, as a severe blow.
He said the company was reviewing unprofitable freight services in order to achieve immediate cost savings. However, he said that there was no question of withdrawing from profitable freight services.
He said that if unprofitable areas were axed, around 250 jobs could be affected, but he said these would be dealt with through voluntary severance and redeployment. He also said that there were no plans to sell Rosslare Europort, which was a profit-making arm of the company.
Mr Kenny added that no decision had been taken on whether to close rail lines between Limerick Junction and Rosslare Harbour, along with lines between Limerick and Ballybrophy.
He pointed out that rail freight services were in direct competition with hauliers. He added that Irish rail services did not enjoy the economies of the scale of other European countries.
