Abstract

The Irish model of social partnership is comparatively unusual in the way that it accommodates the involvement of farmer associations and community and voluntary sector organisations. Like other countries, Ireland has had some previous experience with tripartite governance (during the 1970s) although, since 1987 when this type of arrangement re-commenced, a more sophisticated model embedded traditional actors more firmly in a strategic consensus and drew in a wider spectrum of interests. This paper explores the entry, context and significance of one of these new actors, the community-voluntary pillar (CVP), whose inclusion in social partnership might, from certain perspectives, seem anomalous.