However, a Department of Enterprise spokeswoman said attorney general Rory Brady is still considering the legal questions surrounding the company's application for a rebate of the statutory redundancy payments made to its departing Irish crew.

Last year, Irish Ferries outraged unions and sparked street protests when it moved to replace its Irish workers with lower-paid agency workers, mainly from Latvia, and re-flag its ships in Cyprus. It offered its staff a severance payment of six weeks' pay per year of service, plus the two weeks' statutory redundancy entitlement.

Under existing legislation, all workers are guaranteed two weeks' pay per year of service if they are made redundant. But companies are entitled to a government rebate of over half the cost of these statutory payouts as long as the redundancies are genuine in that the company is in financial difficulties.

It is understood the attorney general is examining whether the Irish Ferries redundancies are genuine before sanctioning the rebate.

But Brady, and Micheal Martin in particular, will be acutely aware of the public outrage that could follow if the taxpayer is forced to pay millions to help a company replace their Irish workforce with cheaper foreign labour.

In its recent financial report, the Irish Continental Group, which owns Irish Ferries, said redundancies cost the company 29.1m. "The figure is net of a rebate of the statutory redundancy element of the severance package of 4.1m. Application has been made to the appropriate authorities for the refund of this rebate, " said the report.

While the Irish Ferries dispute was eventually resolved, union pressure on Martin forced him to introduce legislation which will make it financially prohibitive for companies to replace their workers with cheaper labour.

Under the legislation companies will have to pay workers up to five years' pay in compensation if they are forced out in such circumstances.