Ireland’s two top industrial relations bodies will be led by new faces with the appointment of Kevin Foley as the chairman of the Labour Court and Oonagh Buckley as the director general of the Workplace Relations Commission. This follows the recent retirement of Kieran Mulvey and Kevin Duffy from the top jobs at the WRC and Labour Court, respectively.

Kevin Foley is currently a deputy chairman of the Labour Court and was previously the director of conciliation at the Labour Relations Commission, which was recently subsumed by the WRC. He has been involved in labour affairs in Ireland for over 30 years.

Oonagh Buckley is currently the assistant secretary responsible for pay and pensions at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DPER). She has led the employers’ side in all the major public service pay and industrial relations negotiations of recent years.

The WRC, which is the first point of access for industrial relations and employment rights issues, has been involved in virtually every high profile dispute in recent years. The Labour Court is the body that deals with appeals when other industrial relations procedures are exhausted.