The blood-letting at ISME, the small firms lobby group appears to be over for the moment at least. The seven-strong ISME executive is adamant that the dispute between the organisation's chief executive, Mr Frank Mulcahy, and its chairman, Mr Peter Faulkner, will not split the organisation.

The row, discussed at a meeting of the executive earlier this week, was resolved when Mr Faulkner, managing director of Faulkner Packaging, tendered his resignation. His reasoning was that the organisation would be better served if one of the protagonists were out of the way.

A managing director will be appointed to run the organisation while Mr Mulcahy will continue in his current role.

A meeting on August 20th of the ISME national council of which comprises more than 30 members will hear proposals for restructuring the organisation. This will include electing a management and finances committee, a press council (to advise on press releases before they are issued by the organisation) and to ratify the new chairman's position. The new chairman is Mr Seamus Butler who owns a firm in Co Longford.

That the organisation should find itself in such public disarray will provide ammunition for ISME's critics and will probably make its quest to become a fully-fledged social partner more difficult. The loss of Mr Faulkner, an articulate performer in the media and a popular businessman, is a serious blow.

However, it is probably a safe bet that the organisation's larger-than-life characters who some feel may have been part of the problem in the first place will ensure that ISME bounces back.

No doubt recent events, with claim and counterclaim leaking to the media, will have provided a salutary lesson to an organisation which has always sought the limelight.