THE Church of Ireland and the Methodist Church in Ireland are full members of the Council of Churches for Britain and Ireland (CCBI), while the Catholic Church here is an associate member.
However, the Presbyterian Church in Ireland is not affiliated in any way to the CCBI, formerly known as the British Council of Churches.
There were two Irish people on the 15-member working group which prepared the Unemployment and the Future of Work document presented yesterday: Ms Margaret Burns, an administrator of the Council for Social Welfare, a commission of the Irish (Catholic) Bishops Conference, and Mr John Cole, retired political editor of the BBC.
The working party visited Belfast and Dublin last November, for a day in each city, as part of their research for the document, which took 18 months to prepare.
The working party had been particularly influenced by the Irish bishops' pastoral Work is the Key (1992), which Ms Burns presented to them at the beginning of deliberations.
The party visited Dublin during negotiations for Partnership 2000 and remark in the document how they "were fascinated to learn about the more co-operative approach to policy-making in Ireland".
The debate on economic policy here, they feel, "is conducted in more pragmatic terms than it is in Britain. It all seemed exceptionally good-natured and undogmatic
However, the group is also aware of increasing divisions in Irish society, and in particular the continuing high level of unemployment. But they point out that unemployment benefit is higher here than in Britain and the conditions for claiming it "less severe".
