Retail workers’ trade union Mandate has suspended five activists, including two members of its National Executive Council (NEC), in a dispute over confidential settlements made with two members of staff who brought complaints against leading officials.

Three of the five were candidates for the NEC at the forthcoming conference, which is due to take place over two days at the end of April. The other two were due to stand for other union committees.

All have been suspended from union activities and told they will not be permitted to attend the conference or stand in the elections.

The move is the latest development in a long-running internal dispute at the union where critics of the leadership have alleged binding NEC decisions were ignored, rules were disregarded and questions regarding the union’s finances have gone unanswered.

One of the key issues in the dispute is the use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in settlements reached with two staff members, Pearse McCarthy and Dave Gibney.Both left Mandate over the past couple of years, having made complaints against senior officials.

The settlements and use of NDAs were opposed by some members of the NEC, effectively the union’s board, and details of the terms agreed were not subsequently provided to council members despite requests, it is alleged.

One of the council members to criticise the handling of the issue was Lorna Langan, from north Dublin. In her campaign literature published online as part of her move to win re-election to the council and be elected union treasurer, she was critical of governance at the organisation. She referenced, among other things, her previous opposition to “blank cheques” and demanded “transparency and honesty to prevent cover-ups”.

The document and the engagement with it on social media by a number of the union’s other activists prompted a complaint by eight staff members who threatened industrial action if “robust” action was not taken against those involved.

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In two letters to the organisation they identified 25 people they believed guilty of wrongdoing.

Aside from the five who were suspended – Langan, fellow NEC member Brenda Histon who was also running for re-election, Mark Hayes who was running for the council, Helen O’Keeffe and Standing Orders committee member Sarah Byrne – a number of members received a letter warning them about future conduct.

Meanwhile, accounts for the union due to be presented at the conference show it lost about 1,500 members over 2025 and was down to 18,849 from 22,006 over two years.

The union has faced declining members over a sustained period as traditional bricks and mortar retail has struggled and some of the big employers in the sector have been reluctant to engage.

Critics of the leadership, which said it does not discuss internal matters when approached for comment by The Irish Times, say they have been unable to clarify various issues to do with the accounts.

Asked about the action taken against her, Langan said: “I’ve been told I cannot comment on the substance of the complaint against me, but I can say this: all I’ve done since being elected to the NEC is act in the interests of paying members. I feel this is penalisation for that, and I have now lodged a complaint with the WRC under the Protected Disclosures Act. I have also sought legal advice.

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“A minority of us on the NEC have been seeking transparency around expenditure. Former staff have been terminated with payments that we have not been made aware of. We do not know what senior staff are earning, including the general secretary.

“All of this is in breach of the rule book, and all we have asked is that the union follow its own rules. Instead, they have breached them again by suspending me and four others without any investigation. It’s really shocking.”