Speaking of Eircom's share performance, did you hear the story about the government awash with money which managed to shoot itself in the foot over the start of its privatisation policy? I thought you might have.

While the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, and her advisers, were bound to try to maximise the return to the Exchequer - i.e. the taxpayers - of the sell-off, it was never intended to be at the cost of the success of the deal.

The poor performance of the share since its flotation has indeed limited the success of the exercise and considerably dampened the enthusiasm of the 500,000-plus shareholders - many of them novices at stock investment - for further State flotations.

Now the Government is looking at divesting itself of Aer Lingus, albeit in a much smaller offering. With disenchantment over the Eircom performance among both private investors and, apparently, the institutions, selling the State airline will not be easy money for the Government or its advisers.

Aer Lingus operates in a notoriously fickle and cyclical market. Worse still, that market now appears to be cresting the top of the cycle, meaning the only medium-term future is down. Membership of the Oneworld alliance is unlikely to help. Given its size, Aer Lingus's voice in such an alliance is likely to be muted. The Government will certainly need to be careful in picking its advisers. After all, it was the recommendation of one of the advisers in the Eircom flotation - Merrill Lynch - which was credited with seeing the offer price of the shares set a good bit higher than had been expected. Any regrets, Mary? . . .

Dominic Coyle can be contacted at dcoyle@irish-times.ie