UNIONS and senior executives at Irish Life will meet the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) today in an eleventh hour attempt to resolve a long running dispute between the company and its sales force.

The commission, which has intervened in a previous dispute involving Irish Life sales managers, yesterday invited both parties to attend the hearing at which it hopes a formula to break the deadlock can be found.

A spokesman for Irish Life confirmed that dismissals were continuing" yesterday but stressed that the company was "happy" to return to the LRC.

Talks between the Manufacturing Science Finance union (MSF) and the company broke down at the weekend. Following the collapse in reaching a settlement, Irish Life said it would step up moves to dismiss sales employees who would not accept new work practices.

Up to 100 dismissal notices are expected to have been served to sales employees by the end of the week in the absence of a settlement. Five employees, who were the first to be given notice of dismissal, are due to be taken off the payroll next Friday.

The union has accused the company of engineering a lock out through its action in dismissing staff who are opposed to the new structure. Irish Life, however, insists that the key to the dispute is the unwillingness of the sales force to co operate with, the new structure while negotiations are continuing.

Under the proposed new sales structure, staff would operate in teams and on a bonus related rather than commission based basis. This has already been accepted by managers represented by MSF.