Delegates attending the Irish Congress of Trade Unions conference in Bundoran have passed a motion calling for a mandatory pension scheme to ensure proper living standards in old age.
It is estimated that almost half the workforce, about 900,000 people, have no pension provisions other than the basic state pension.
Congress wants the mandatory pension scheme to be operated by the State on the basis of equal funding contributions by employers, employees and the state.
IMPACT: Agency workers threaten pay levels
The IMPACT trade union has warned of pay levels nosediving and work conditions deteriorating throughout the public sector.
This was the warning issued by Kevin Callinan, the National Secretary of the IMPACT trade union, because of the use of agency workers in the health service.
Mr Callinan told the annual ICTU conference in Bundoran, Co Donegal, that he believed the use of agency workers could be more expensive for employers.
He said that apart from the potential to drive down employment and conditions for permanent staff agency workers could actually be more expensive and represented a bad deal for the taxpayer.
Meanwhile, the National Union of Journalists called for a full review of the system of granting local radio licences before any further licences are awarded.
NUJ General Secretary Seamus Dooley said receiving a licence had turned out to be a licence to print money.
He called on delegates if they were being interviewed to check whether the interviewer was a union member and was being properly paid.
