A warning about communist influence in the trade unions was sent to the Taoiseach, Mr Lemass, by the chairman of W.& R. Jacob in 1966, the files from his Department show, writes Padraig O'Morain.
At a time of great industrial unrest in the State, and when the government was considering ways to cope with it, Mr E.C. Bewley wrote to Mr Lemass to say:
"There is no doubt that the power in the hands of the unions has got very great, indeed I am afraid there is a great deal of communistic influence behind them."
In another letter he told Mr Lemass that inter union rivalry was a big problem and added: "in this company we have the WUI and the ATGWU. I suppose we are lucky that we have not got the ITGWU as well I admit that in our case it has not caused (so far as we know) any great difficulty, but many other organisations have suffered because of this situation."
Mr Lemass wrote back to say he did not see how there could be "any complete solution of the problems created by irresponsible trade union behaviour, outside of dictatorship."
At the time, Mr Lemass was considering a rather less drastic course of action strengthening the authority of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions over its members.