IRISH CONFERENCE OF PROFESSIONAL AND SERVICE ASSOCIATIONS
| IRELAND |
| IRISH CONFERENCE OF PROFESSIONAL AND SERVICE
ASSOCIATIONS |
The Irish Conference of Professional and Service Associations (ICPSA) was founded in 1946 as an umbrella group for trade unions and staff associations not affiliated to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (either by choice or by legislation forbidding such affiliation). It is the second largest trade union confederation, with an affiliated membership of 44,600 in nine separate trade unions or associations. Its affiliates' members work in areas such as professional, service, clerical and technical employment. Affiliates include the three main police bodies and the army representative organisations, as well as the staff association for employees of the Representative Church Body of the Church of Ireland. The ICPSA was set up to promote and protect the interests of salaried workers by providing a forum for the interchange of views and information, and to prepare at national level a common policy for workers on pay increases, pensions and health insurance. Some of the ICPSA's proposals have been adopted as Goverment policy, although not all of these have necessarily been employmentrelated, such as the establishment of the Voluntary Health Insurance, Ireland's private health insurance scheme. The ICPSA also has the right to nominate up to seven candidates to the Labour section in elections to the Senate (the Upper House of Parliament). However, the future of the ICPSA must be in doubt with the recent affiliation of the IBOA, its largest member, to the ICTU, since the IBOA had provided most of the ICPSA's finances.
Please note: the European industrial relations glossaries were compiled between 1991 and 2003 and are not updated. For current material see the European industrial relations dictionary.
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