An equitable spread of the benefits of economic success plays an important role in national consensus, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, has said. He said successful partnership in the workplace would give the country a sound platform on which to build for the new millennium as a competitive, dynamic and results-driven economy.

Mr Ahern was speaking at the launch of a new guide on employee share option schemes (Esops) in Dublin last night. The guide's authors said no Irish company had yet availed of the tax breaks for approved share ownership programmes, which were provided for in last year's Finance Act and suggested in the Partnership 2000 agreement. The guide was written by Mr Liam Hennessy, head of the business consulting unit at Farrell Grant Sparks and Mr Jerry Shanahan, deputy national secretary of the MSF trade union. They said companies were failing to recognise a significant opportunity to improve their performance in the light of the "generally impressive" performance of companies in the US and Britain which had Esops.