Legal Background in the Peer Country

Unique in the European institutional panorama, Ireland’s regulatory framework is characterised by a mix of the British/American neo-liberalism and the European neo-corporatism. The Irish political and business classes have maintained a voluntarist industrial relations system, inherited from the British colonial presence but, over time, they have widened social dialogue first under the traditional influence of the Roman Catholic Church and, more recently, of the European Union. Social interests followed by community and voluntary sector interests were progressively incorporated in policy-making. The National Partnership Framework is the national socio-economic agreement between the state and main employer, farmer and trade union associations.20 The basis of all the agreements has been the trade-off between wage moderation, fiscal restraint and tax concessions. As anticipated, over the years, the partnership process has widened both in terms of the social partners involved and of the issues dealt with. Besides pay-related issues, the partnership agreement 2003-2005, involves, for instance, childcare, racism, workplace participation, training, TU recognition and social inclusion, also through the use of Information Technologies. For many observers, however, the partnership process has been unable to sufficiently address a number of social issues, such as childcare provision, discrimination against new migrant workers