A report used in the negotiation of Partnership 2000 has warned that national agreements could collapse without more institutional supports. The study, Crisis, Strategic Re-evaluation and the Re-emergence of Tripartism in Ireland, was written by Mr Brian Sheehan, an industrial relations expert and commentator. The social partnership approach to the economy had served Irish society well since 1987, he said, but he identified the key missing ingredient as "institutional glue".
The success of national agreements, combined with the economic boom, had created a "virtuous cycle" of growth which had made the cultivation of social partnership easy. But if economic circumstances changed, the social partners could find it hard to resolve differences within existing structures.
He also warned that the growing trend among multinational companies to exclude unions could pose serious problems for social partnership in the longer term. It needed to be addressed before things reached crisis point. Mr Sheehan pointed out that Ireland lacked several of the traditional preconditions for successful tripartite agreements between governments, unions and employers. In countries such as Germany, Austria and Sweden strong social democratic parties and highly centralised trade union movements had underpinned tripartite agreements.
Ireland, in contrast, had weak left-wing political parties and a fragmented trade union movement. Traditionally it followed the British adversarial model.
The 1987 Programme for National Recovery was not concluded because of the ideological conversion of Irish employers, politicians or trade unionists, but because of a financial crisis that threatened to undermine the stability of the economy and the State.
He said that a generation of trade union leaders emerged who were convinced of the need for an agreement after the disastrous free-for-all of the early 1980s.
The then Taoiseach, Mr Charles Haughey, had come to much the same conclusion, Mr Sheehan said, and he argues that it was in large part due to pressure from Mr Haughey that the employers agreed to make the sort of pay concessions needed to conclude the Programme for National Recovery.
Its success led to the conclusion of two further agreements, the Programme for Economic and Social Progress, and the Programme for Competitiveness and Work.
Mr Sheehan's study has yet to be published, but it was concluded before Partnership 2000 was agreed and its conclusions were studied by the National Economic and Social Council, when it framed the parameters for those negotiations.
The warning about the lack of institutional "glue" in previous agreements seems to have been taken on board by the negotiators of Partnership 2000, at least to the extent of setting up wider ranging consultative structures. These include a high-level committee to look at union recognition, and developing structures to facilitate greater social partnership in the workplace.
Mr Sheehan sees no immediate threat to agreements. He says that employers and unions both see the advantages of social partnership at present.