About Social Partnership
Social Partnership in Ireland is the process used to negotiate and achieve consensus on a range of social and economic policy issues. The present process which began in 1987 was initially limited to the Government, Business, Trade Unions and Farmers.
Organisations representing the unemployed and those experiencing poverty and inequality protested that their members did not benefit from the agreements and so began to lobby to be included in the 1996 negotiations.
The Community Platform and 7 other organisations were successful in their efforts when they were selected by the Government to become the Community & Voluntary Pillar - the fourth social partnership Pillar.
Membership of the Community & Voluntary Pillar has been expanded and is currently made up of 17 representative organisations. Some organisations are both members of the Community Platform and social partners in their own right also. The Environmental Pillar was established in May 2009.
The diagram below provides an overview of the composition of the various Pillars and links to their member organisations.
Latest News
The Community Platform*, a network of 30 national community organisations today called on those involved in negotiating the new programme for government to pursue an alternative vision for Ireland - an Ireland where policies and actions are based on the values of social solidarity, justice, equality and sustainability.
Updates From Members
Debt and Development Coalition recently launched a new book 'Driving the Getaway Car? Ireland, Tax and Development', written on behalf of its member organisations by Dr Sheila Killian of the University of Limerick.
'Driving the Getaway Car?' explains how impoverished countries lose billions of euro through weak domestic tax collection capacities and through unjust international tax structures. Transfer pricing abuse is highlighted as a particular area of concern. This is when subsidiaries of the same multi-national company artificially set the prices of goods and services in order to minimise their tax bills, often through the use of secrecy jurisdictions, popularly known as tax havens. This illegal practice is very difficult to monitor and costs impoverished countries billions in lost tax revenue.