PARTNERSHIP 2000 is the most ambitious national agreement so far. For the first time it provides an integrated package of pay rises and tax cuts that will enable trade unionists to calculate the real value of the deal. This will be a crucial point for trade union leaders, when they begin selling the deal at the round of special delegate conferences next month.

But Partnership 2000 is much more than a simple pay deal. It aims to ensure that changes in tax and pay support continued growth, improve the overall competitiveness of the economy and deliver more of the benefits to the low paid.

It will also seek to bring more long-term unemployed people back into the workforce. This will be done by a series of measures to improve their access to education, training and, ultimately, jobs.

One of the more radical measures in Partnership 2000 is the expansion of an existing pilot scheme of 1,000 jobs for long-term unemployed people to 10,000. The idea was pioneered by the Conference of Religious of Ireland and taken up by the National Economic and Social Forum. The expanded programme will be aimed at giving people who have been unemployed for at least five years a chance to do socially meaningful work at the going rate for the job.

Inevitably some of the organisations involved in the "social pillar" of the negotiations will feel disappointed that more has not been achieved. But measures like the new jobs initiative, and accelerated development of the Local Employment Service network for unemployment blackspots, should make them feel the exercise was worthwhile not to mention providing valuable negotiating experience for the next time.

However, the key to everything is economic growth and the prerequisite for that is continued industrial peace. For all the changes, Partnership 2000 will be judged primarily on the basis of how it compares with previous agreements and the jury" will be the State's 500,000 trade unionists.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions can feel reasonably satisfied, on the pay front. It has secured a deal with a cumulative value of 9.65 per cent, close to its 10 per cent opening bid. The cumulative value of pay rises in the Programme for Competitiveness and Work was 8.25 per cent.

When £900 million in tax cuts are taken into account the overall increase in take-home pay for the average PAYE worker will be 14 per cent. This should translate into increases in real pay of around 2 per cent a year after inflation.

THE Irish Business and Employers' Confederation can also be happy to have a deal at provides three more years of industrial peace, keeps wage costs more or less in line with our, main EU competitors and will allow employers to offset increases against reductions in Corporation Profits Tax and changes in PRSI.

However, some of the most important objectives of the new deal are less immediately tangible, although they will transform the nature of Irish industrial relations if they are achieved. Much of the thinking behind them has come from the ICTU, which is anxious to ensure the trade union movement is not marginalised in a rapidly changing and globalised economy.

The agreement will provide for social partnership at enterprise level. When, for instance, local pay bargaining takes place trade unionists will be able to put wider issues on the table, such as discussion of work organisation, the company's investment policy and ways of negotiating on-going change.

A National Centre for Partnership and Change is also to be set up, involving the ICTU, IBEC, the Labour Relations Commission and other State agencies. The centre will provide joint training for trade union officials and human resource managers.

The ICTU has also succeeded in getting the issue of trade union recognition on the agenda. Increasing numbers of new hi-tech companies investing in Ireland are adopting a non-union, or even anti-union policy.

A high-level group consisting of ICTU, IBEC, the IDA, Forbairt and representatives of the Department of the Taoiseach and the Department of Enterprise and Employment will have to report back to the social partners within a year on how the problem can be addressed. While few believe the problem can be resolved easily, the ICTU has decided, for the moment, to continue with its softly-softly approach.

Profit-sharing and other measures to increase the stakeholding that employees have in an enterprise are to be encouraged. Further tax relief for workers taking shares in their company will be given and, for the first time, workers can opt to hold shares collectively through their union if they wish, rather than as individuals.

A national framework to provide childcare facilities for working, parents and affirmative action to increase access to jobs by groups like the disabled and travellers will also be proposed. The thrust of Partnership 2000 is to create a new social contract, not just for those at work, but for those seeking a job and an escape from the poverty trap.

The quid pro quo is that workers accept the need for change, as something that should be negotiated, rather than simply bartered for. In the private sector that principle has been conceded in practice in many firms.

CHANGE has come more slowly in the public service.

Significantly, the terms for local bargaining increases are tighter in the public service and the new agreement will have provisions to promote modernisation.

There is still much unfinished business on public sector pay from the PCW. Teachers and nurses are only the largest of several groups with unresolved disputes.

If Partnership 2000 is to pave the way for a new type of national agreement, rather than herald a relapse into old style confrontation, then a new way of negotiating change and productivity is urgently needed in the public service.

Success here could be the acid test for the new agreement.