News of the contact emerged during a three-day mission to Dublin last week by a delegation of Israeli employer and union representatives, who met taoiseach Bertie Ahern, labour affairs minister Billy Kelleher, the National Economic and Social Council and the ESRI, as well as their counterparts in Ibec and ICTU. The 15 delegates, led by the chairmen of the Federation of Israeli Economic Organisations (FIEO) and Histadrut, Israel's umbrella union, were examining the Irish social partnership and economic model in the hope of pressuring their government to hammer out a national agreement on wages, pensions and working conditions along Irish lines.

Last week's visit also took the form of business diplomacy, as Histadrut chairman Ofer Eini left on Wednesday confident he had secured a commitment from ICTU to drop its support for a boycott of Israel.

Eini told the Sunday Tribune that an ICTU delegation will go to Israel in November to meet Israeli and Palestinian union reps . . . who Eini says privately oppose the boycott . . . "so at their next national convention their boycott will be overturned".

An ICTU spokesman confirmed the Israel visit would take place, but said the executive council would have to vote next year on any change to its boycott policy, which was approved only in June.

FIEO also invited Ibec to Israel for a trade seminar and a series of meetings in early 2008. FIEO chairman Shraga Brosh pushed hard to convince Irish business leaders to double their imports of Israeli hightech products . . . including military technology with civil uses . . . to reach US levels.