The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Emer Costello, has welcomed the end of the fifteen week long MTL strike at Dublin Port. The Company, Peel Holdings, has agreed to the Labour Court recommendations on job retention and redundancies. A meeting will take place today, (Friday, 23rd October) to negotiate the return to work.
Dublin Port area has become a 21st century success story for our city and its people. The citizens of Dublin, and particularly the local communities take great pride in this success and also in the strong traditions of Dublin Port. For that reason I was, along with the workers and local community, deeply concerned and alarmed at the situation which had developed at MTL as the dispute continued week on week.
I visited the MTL workers at the Port during the strike and I agreed with them and their union representatives that the best way to resolve the matter was through the tried and tested dispute resolution machinery of the State rather than court actions and legal threats. It is a source of great relief to all those who were involved in the dispute that MTL has accepted the Labour Court recommendation.
I wish to pay tribute to the workers for the dignity and resolve they displayed throughout the dispute and also to the local community for their support. I hope that the differences of the past can now be set aside and we look to the future of ensuring that Dublin Port remains the success story that it is for the country’s imports and exports.
It is also a salutary lesson that the best means of resolving such disputes is to fully utilise the State’s industrial relations machinery.
