Irish Ferries has said it cannot accept or implement Labour Court recommendations issued today.
Earlier the court ruled that Irish Ferries, which is trying to replace almost 550 Irish staff with cheaper agency workers from overseas, should honour its current agreements with unions.
But this evening, in a statement to the stock exchange, Irish Ferries' parent company Irish Continental Group said the company could not incur the substantial cost of accommodating staff who had agreed to take its redundancy package 'without clear prior knowledge of an acceptable cost of replacement staff'.
SIPTU general secretary Jack O'Connor said the union was available to participate in any negotiations in a spirit of goodwill.
Last year, SIPTU and the Seamen's Union of Ireland concluded an agreement with the company permitting outsourcing of staff on the French route. In exchange, the company was to maintain normal staffing on its Irish sea routes until 2007.
In a Labour Court ruling, Chairman Kevin Duffy said that company had not made a sufficiently compelling case to justify its unilateral termination of that employment agreement. He said the proposals put forward by the company went significantly further than merely seeking to review the agreement.
Mr Duffy also said that the Labour Court was not satisfied that all possibilities of renegotiating aspects of the agreement had been exhausted.
He ruled that the company should continue to honour last year's agreement on staffing - and that the parties should resume negotiations on such modifications as may be necessary in order to address any changes in circumstances. He also ruled that the terms of a Registered Employment Agreement for ships' officers was clear and binding on both sides. This means that both the company and unions will be obliged to give two weeks notice in writing of any proposed change or industrial action.
