A meeting of the national council of the small firms lobby group ISME ended yesterday without the taking of a no confidence vote in four directors. The vote, which related to directors Mr Terry Hobdell, Mr Eoghan Hynes, Mr David Dixon and Ms Eileen Bergin, had been deferred from a previous meeting.

However, at the council meeting yesterday, chairman Mr Seamus Butler ended the meeting when some members said they still wanted to take a vote on the position of the four directors.

Mr Jim Wallace, who had tabled the motion, said Mr Butler had ended the meeting very abruptly and appeared not to want to take the motion, even though it would only have taken a show of hands from the 39-strong council. However, Mr Butler said that he had offered to take the vote at the start of the meeting but the meeting indicated it wanted to deal with the issue later. He maintained it would have required a lengthy discussion.