FROM revolutionary to banker is an unusual career trajectory, unless of course, the revolution is successful. The transformation has only happened on rare occasions in Europe and Phil Flynn can probably claim to be the first person to make the transition in modern Ireland.
His appointment as chairman of the Industrial Credit Corporation means that he is now a fully paid-up member of the establishment. And yet no one is accusing him of ever having "sold out". Indeed many people will probably take pleasure in the prospect of Phil Flynn shaking up this staid State bank.
Many will also be wondering why the Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, appointed Mr Flynn in the first place. The general secretary of IMPACT, who is due to retire in May, has a proven track record in reforming, redirecting and expanding organisations. It would seem that the most likely explanation is that the Government wants him to look again at how best to create the long awaited third banking force.
Ideologically, Mr Flynn would be predisposed to getting such a project off the ground. But his whole career, from Sinn Fein activist to radical socialist, to architect of a decade of social partnership in the Republic shows that he has never been a prisoner of ideology. He has a flair for looking at things afresh.
If Mr Quinn has some notion at the back of his mind that the trade union leader will solve the problem of how to create the new banking force Mr Flynn says it hasn't been confided to him.
He accepts that the job will be something completely different. "But it's a state bank with the primary task of supporting economic development in Ireland particularly industrial development. In that sense it shouldn't come as a great change.
"What I don't know about banking I'll pick up quickly, and there are a lot of other skills I'll bring to it. I've had a lifetime of learning."
On the decision to appoint a senior trade unionist to the ICC, he says, "in a way it's no more than a manifestation of partnership at national level." He says he will give himself time to settle in and will not become involved in the day-to-day management of the bank.
On the issue of a third banking force he says, "I haven't been given any particular brief". But he adds that in the long term "there would seem to be a case for rationalisation.
"We have state banks sitting there and we have the TSB. We have the credit unions and An Post and we have the Government's own treasury agency. And in some state companies there are also treasury departments." At the end of the day however, he says that the form any third banking force takes will be "a political question requiring a political answer."
Mr Flynn has just bowed out after a four-year term as president and vice president of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions. He played a key role in negotiating the last three national pay agreements and it was a sign of the regard in which he was held that he topped the poll in the ICTU executive elections last July.
How does he rate the future of national agreements and industrial `partnership'? "The real problem with partnership is that after nearly 10 years there has been a failure to push it down to shop floor and plant level." Of the employers, he says, that IBEC is willing and able to police the pay aspects of national agreements, "but what is really required on the employers' side is a big dose of cultural change". There were enormous advantages to employers in having the sort of stability and predictability in industrial relations that centralised bargaining brings.
These factors would become even more important if we moved into EMU. In return they had to be ready to provide genuine partnership with the unions.
On the issue of union recognition, which many new foreign companies are avoiding, he says, "I don't have any glib answers. But there has to be an acceptance by the social partners that it is an issue to be confronted. And it is an issue that is standing in the way of progress.
"The ICTU will be putting forward a paper in the context of new talks and the position on union recognition is being worked on at the moment. It's really a part of partnership on the ground. If the employers and unions can sit down rationally and hammer out very complex agreements on very big issues, why can't they do it on.
He says that the non-pay commitments of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work have been met and, on the pay front, people's net pay has increased, which is a very different situation from the 1980s `free-for-all'. if there was a defect with the agreements it was that the unions didn't set their sights high enough. No one had forseen Just how spectacular growth would be. Problems were arising now on the public sector pay front because restructuring deals were something new and there were just not enough people on the Government side with the expertise to negotiate on all fronts at once.
"The Department of Finance is central to all negotiations, which means that every public sector employer needs their OK to move ahead. Trying to keep the teachers' ball in the air and the nurses' ball and all the others, at the same time, is more than they can handle."
He is also concerned that not enough is being done to build on the work of past partnerships. "There has to be a kind of dynamism. The concept has to grow if it is to survive. It has to develop and touch new realities. "I wouldn't write off another agreement and I certainly wouldn't write off discussions on a new agreement. Then it will be up to all concerned."
Mr Flynn is also chairman of the Devolution Commission, which is looking at how functions of the State can be devolved to make local democracy more representative and participative. Mr Flynn says it hopes to produce its first interim report within the next six weeks.
As a man who first came to public prominence through his successful defence against a prosecution for IRA membership and as a former vice-president of Sinn Fein he still takes a strong interest in northern affairs. Earlier this week he attended the Northern Ireland Committee of the ICTU, where the peace process was the subject of a major debate.
Asked about what chance he gave the peace process, he says, "Obviously there are difficulties. To be honest, anyone who thought it was going to be easy was getting carried away by the euphoria. Peace processes are never easy anywhere, whether its South Africa, the Middle East or Northern Ireland.
"People need to keep their nerve and heads, and keep working away to improve the climate and conditions conducive for peace. We, as trade unionists, have had it brought home to us more than most that there's no solution to any problem unless people get around a table and talk.
"My first statement as president of Congress was to welcome the ceasefire, but that, of itself, it might turn out to be the easiest part of the process." The ICTU responded very quickly to emphasise the need to underpin the social and economic Issues to the process, he says, "but the political solution has to be developed by politicians. I travel in hope.
"People have always wanted peace and will always want peace, but I don't think there has been a shift in hard core positions. Part of the problem is that everyone wants peace on their own terms."
Asked how he viewed the long-term prospects he says, "If you were asking me if you should invest in the North, I'd say yes." Could this be the banker talking?
