New dispute-resolution body has first outing

A new top-level tripartite dispute-resolution body, the National Implementation Body, was established in December 2000 in order to "police" Ireland's current national agreement, the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness. The body had its first outing in January 2001 when it helped to end a major dispute at the state-owned airline, Aer Lingus.

When Ireland's current 33-month national agreement, the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness (PPF) (IE0003149F), was formally "revised" in December 2000 (IE0012161F) the social partners agreed to the establishment of a new three-person body to oversee the "peace clause" in the agreement. This National Implementation Body (NIB) is chaired by Dermot McCarthy, a top government secretary, and its other members are Turlough O' Sullivan, the director general of the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC) and Peter Casells, the outgoing general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU).

The NIB has been described by one senior trade union leader as a "virtual body" as it has no offices, budget or full-time personnel. Like the main state-run dispute-resolution agencies, the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) and the Labour Court, the NIB operates in accordance with Ireland's largely voluntarist industrial relations tradition. In effect, the NIB is the formalisation of a hitherto informal process, which since 1987 involved leading figures from IBEC, ICTU and the government intervening in intractable high-profile disputes, which had usually already been through the formal dispute-resolution process. Examples included a five-day power strike at the ESB, the state-owned electricity company in 1991 and a nationwide bank strike in 1992. In both cases, the pay agreement under the then national agreement - the Programme for Economic and Social Progress (PESP) - was under threat. IBEC and ICTU figures played a central role in ending both disputes in such a way so as to maintain the integrity of the PESP.

Essentially, therefore, what was agreed in December 2000 was the formalisation of this process through the establishment of the NIB. Its first intervention came in mid-January 2001 and concerned a strike by 1,600 cabin staff at Aer Lingus, which had halted the state-owned airline's operations for two days (IE0011223N). The new body convinced the company and the union involved, IMPACT, to engage in direct negotiations, reach agreement, and then have this deal "sanctioned" by the Labour Court.

Shortly after the NIB intervened in the Aer Lingus dispute, it also became involved in a major dispute in the construction sector after the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) asked for it to become involved.

While IBEC, in particular, sees the NIB as necessary to "police" the PPF, some industrial relations experts are worried that a situation might develop whereby the parties in various disputes will ritually demand the intervention of the NIB. If this were to happen it could undermine the moral authority of Ireland's dispute-resolution institutions, the Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court.