Security staff at Dublin Airport have spoken of the aggression they faced from some members of the public during long delays on Sunday, which resulted in over 1,000 people missing their flights.
Airport operator daa has apologised for the disruption and offered to compensate those affected.
Speaking to RTÉ's Morning Ireland, an Airport Security Unit (ASU) officer - who is also a member of SIPTU - said that while he and his colleagues felt very sorry for passengers affected, staff had suffered a significant amount of abuse.
In response, the daa said it was "committed to safeguarding all those who travel through and work at Dublin Airport".
Industrial Organiser with the Aviation Sector of SIPTU Jerry Brennan said the union has "constantly engaged" with the airport operator specifically in relation to staff being treated aggressively while carrying out their security duties.
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He said additional airport police and Garda presence have previously been applied to address this.
Mr Brennan added that while Sunday was a dreadful day for the travelling public, staff in the ASU have been operating under similar huge pressure since passengers started returning in great volumes six months ago.
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Mr Brennan said the daa are "masters of their own destiny."
Speaking on RTÉ's Six One, Mr Brennan said they introduced the voluntary severance scheme very early on in the pandemic and "encouraged or incentivised" over 1,000 staff to leave, including around 300 security staff or 30% of the full complement of security officers.
He said security have to be able to read x-ray machines "in seconds" and are responsible for the safety of all passengers going through the airport.
He said €14.14 per hour is not enough to attract people into a job with that level of responsibility.
The SIPTU representative said the union has also raised concerns with Dublin Airport over staff not receiving overtime payments in their pay slips.
The daa said its provider, Kronos, was impacted by a cyber-attack in December 2021. As a consequence, daa's payroll system was unavailable for 14 weeks between December 2021 and March 2022.
It said it "acknowledges the concerns with payroll that SIPTU has raised on behalf of its members, and this matter is a top priority for both the daa Board of Directors and Executive Team."
The daa said it is "fully committed to ensuring that all of our people are paid correctly - first-time, and every time."
It also revealed it has made changes to the training process for new security recruits.
Normally to become a fully certified ASU officer, new recruits would be required to undergo training on seven competencies, which would be completed as a block across a five-week period.
However, the daa has broken the training course into two tranches to "assist the security operation". The first takes place over a two-week period and covers five competencies.
A new recruit is then deemed to be partially certified and can be deployed to the floor to conduct certain duties.
They can then return at a later period to complete the remaining two competencies to become a fully certified officer.
Meanwhile, the co-leader of the Social Democrats has said that she is aware of Dublin Airport security staff who were made redundant during the Covid-19 pandemic, being asked to return.
However, Catherine Murphy said that the terms and conditions of the new contracts fall short of what workers were previously signed up to.
Speaking outside Leinster House, she called on the daa to provide evidence of how it intends on addressing the issue of security delays, adding that a "sticking plaster" approach will not suffice.
People Before Profit's Richard Boyd Barrett has said that "rubbish, flexi, low-paid contracts" for Dublin Airport security workers are at the heart of the delays seen recently.
The airport operator is due to report back today to Government with a plan on how it will tackle long delays for passengers this summer.
Its Chief Executive, Dalton Philips, is set to appear before the Oireachtas Committee on Transport tomorrow to discuss the delays.
With additional reporting by Tommy Meskill
