A NEW industrial relations scholarship worth £65,000 is to be set up to mark the 50th anniversary of the Labour Court. It will be used to fund three-year programmes of advanced research into developing "the greater understanding of their industrial relations milieu in Ireland".
It will replace the existing Newman Scholarship in Industrial Relations at University College Dublin. It is named after Cardinal Newman and R.J.R Mortished, the first chairman of the Labour Court. The fund was announced by the Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Bruton, last night at a special reception in _ Dublin Castle to celebrate the first 50 years of the court.
During that time, Mr Bruton said, the court had issued 19,000 recommendations involving 1.7 million employees. "The fact that the vast majority of recommendations are accepted by both sides speaks for itself about the expertise of the court and its ability to command the confidence of employers, employees and trade unions," he said.
The court had been successful because of its ability to adapt to different patterns of economic growth, a changing industrial relations culture and new legislative frameworks.
Mr Bruton said that recent reports by Forfas, the Labour Relations Commission, the National council and the National Economic and Social Forum had stressed the need to develop employment relations in ways that helped Irish-based enterprises to compete and grow.
"The realities of competitiveness and change form the background of the current negotiations for a new national programme," Mr Bruton said. Their success depended ultimately on a willingness of the social partners to frame an agreement which would promote enterprise and employment. The Labour Court had pioneered the partnership approach that had underpinned the success of tripartite negotiations.