No surprise when Eircom chairman Mr Ray MacSharry rejected Senator Shane Ross's latest campaign - with Mr Eamon Dunphy and Mr Tony Gregory - for a boardroom cull. The dogged trio want six directors sacked but success is unlikely.

Mr Ross has sometimes been praised for his incisive, eh, commentary on the Eircom debacle in the Sunday Independent business pages, which he edits.

Yet consistency is certainly amiss. His column of March 28th, 1999, described Mr MacSharry and fellow directors Mr Pat Molloy and Mr Jim Flavin as "three of the most successful Irish businessmen of their generation". That was then, though, long before Eircom bombed.