The dispute at Stena Line over redundancies has been put on hold pending a Labour Court hearing within the next week.
The company had set a deadline of 5pm today for 39 staff at Dun Laoghaire Port to sign up to their redundancy package or see it reduced to the statutory minimum.
However, following talks this afternoon, it has been agreed that the company will extend the termination date for a month to allow the Labour Court to convene an urgent hearing, issue a recommendation, and permit the parties to reflect on it.
As a result, today's deadline for signing up for redundancy, and Wednesday's deadline for termination have been set aside.
The staff based at Dún Laoghaire is being made redundant because services from the port will only run from April to September, and other services have transferred to Dublin Port.
Last Friday, SIPTU official Christy McQuillan accused the company of reneging on a previous commitment to redeploy Dún Laoghaire staff to its Dublin Port operation if there were a downturn in business.
The redundancies were first announced in August for operational staff and October for support services.
