Our History
“Our history spans some twenty five years of providing genuine employment assistance to Australian businesses”.
Paul Houlihan
Director & Principal
The business was founded in 1988 by Paul Houlihan. With a distinguished career in industrial relations Paul set up the company to focus on genuine micro-economic reform at the enterprise level.
First IR has been instrumental in bringing about change in several key industries such as the waterfront, mining, tourism/hospitality and primary production. Some of the "sacred cows" it has successfully tackled include penalty rates, demarcations, superannuation choice, pay cuts and multi-skilling.
Today, the company operates Australia-wide with professional staff based in Sydney and associates in other capitals.