Politicians, trade union leaders, senior civil servants and business leaders have all been criticised by the chairman of the Labour Court, Mr Finbarr Flood, for undermining the industrial relations machinery of the State.
Mr Flood also criticised the practice of hiring consultants to provide quick solutions to difficult disputes, leaving the court, or the Labour Relations Commission, to deal subsequently with repercussions among other groups of workers.
"Any undermining of the court results in the undermining of the structures on which the industrial relations system operates and, if allowed, chaos is likely to follow," he said.
Mr Flood made his thinly veiled criticisms of the way several major disputes - such as the current row at Dublin Bus - have been handled at a conference on "Sustaining the Momentum of Social Partnership" at University College Dublin yesterday. It was organised by Industrial Relations News.
The Programme for Prosperity and Fairness provides new powers for the Labour Court to arbitrate on whether unions or employers are in breach of national agreements. Mr Flood was clearly laying down a marker that he would be taking this broader remit seriously.
"Despite the peace clause of Partnership 2000, the court was constantly faced with situations where groups going through procedures voted for strike before the court hearing. This is entirely unacceptable practice", he said. "Often we had to accommodate situations where we were giving priority to these disputes.
"It is totally unfair to those who stay within the rules that those who go outside good practice are rewarded for their bad behaviour".
Mr Flood criticised "the current practice of putting in a consultant, who is told the fix a problem and money is no object. They do not have to look at the knock-on effects of that solution and the court is left to deal with the wider implications of the settlement."
Another problem, particularly in the public service, was that management negotiators often had no real authority, "because they have the spectre of the Department of Finance in the background".
Senior trade unionists and business leaders were criticised by Mr Flood for treating Labour Court recommendations as a basis for more negotiations. Interventions by politicians were also sometimes unhelpful.
Mr Flood called for a review of industrial relations with responsibility for the management of the system being made the specific remit of a designated Government minister.