The Labour Relations Commission has intervened in the Iarnród Éireann dispute, which has disrupted travel plans for thousands of passengers.
The LRC will meet management and drivers unions in Cork tomorrow in a bid to resolve the unofficial strike which is estimated to have cost the company around €2m so far.
Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey said it was unacceptable that the an unofficial industrial dispute had left thousands of people without a train service in the southwest and without a full service between Cork and Dublin.
He called for talks and said he was not going to blame either side for the current situation.
However, Mr Dempsey said there was no excuse for putting the train-using public through such an ordeal.
All services between Cork, Cobh, Mallow and Tralee are cancelled.
Cork Chamber of Commerce CEO Conor Healy says the rail dispute is having a bad impact on the region, and has called for a resolution of the row as quickly as possible.
Mr Healy said thousands of rail commuters were getting increasingly annoyed.
Today's disruption comes after the train drivers said yesterday that they had decided to lift their unofficial industrial action.
Services were expected to return to normal today.
Iarnród Éireann spokesman Barry Kenny said that drivers would not sign a document this morning, making a commitment to work to the full terms of existing agreements.
However, the Assistant General Secretary of the National Bus and Railworkers' Union, Dermot O'Leary, accused Iarnród Éireann of using the document to try to intimidate the train drivers.
The dispute centres on a disagreement between the company and Cork-based train drivers over training.
The disruptions began when a Cork-based driver refused to work his roster on Thursday after being asked to facilitate the instruction of new trainee drivers.
Full updated service information is available from Iarnród Éireann's website.
