Pay recovery and proposals to create a new 90,000-strong trade union for public service, commercial and semi-state workers, are set to dominate IMPACT’s biennial delegate conference next month. The final conference agenda which contains over 150 motions for debate in Killarney between 18^th and 20^th May, was issued to IMPACT branch secretaries earlier today.

Unions have challenged Dáil members to legislate to protect workers from exploitative owners after the Government published its report on last year’s Clerys scandal. Long-standing Clerys staff were thrown out of work, with minimal taxpayer-funded compensation, when the owners stripped the company’s assets and declared the store bankrupt.

An IMPACT member has been awarded €50,000 by the Workplace Relations Commission after it ruled that she was unlawfully dismissed for being pregnant. The union understands that her local authority employer intends to appeal the award.