Irish use strike day to shop across border

A woman pushes a pram across a glass walkway in the Victoria Square shopping centre, Belfast, Northern Ireland, November 19, 2009.

DUBLIN (Reuters) - Irish workers caused traffic jams on Tuesday as hundreds made use of a one-day public sector strike to do some Christmas shopping in the cheaper stores across the border in Northern Ireland.

Unions said more than 250,000 teachers, nurses and other public sector workers were taking part in the strike against government plans to cut their pay.

Managers of shopping centers on the UK side of the border said business was like at weekend or pre-Christmas peaks.

"(It) is a direct result of the day of (strike) action," said Peter Murray, manager of the Buttercrane shopping center in Newry, just north of the border on the main Dublin-Belfast road.

Many families traveled north because schools were closed for the day south of the border.

Shoppers from the Republic of Ireland have caused a mini-boom in places like Newry, cheaper due to the weakness of sterling against the euro, lower UK value-added-tax (VAT) and rents, while adding to the woes of the former "Celtic Tiger" economy.

"There are no strike specials," Murray added on Irish public radio RTE, which said there were 5-mile (8-km) queues into Newry.

The chairman of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions' public service committee, who warned a second round of strikes could take place on December 3, said he had not seen any evidence of public servants spending the day shopping.

"I have visited picket lines this morning and saw tens of thousands of public workers who were picketing. I have no evidence of public servants spending their day shopping," Peter McLoone told a news conference.

(Reporting by Andras Gergely and Padraic Halpin; Editing by Janet Lawrence)