It has been a mixed couple of weeks for Public Enterprise Minister Mary O'Rourke. She must have felt her luck was in when last week, shortly after she arrived in Wall Street to tour ahead of the Telecom flotation, the Dow broke the 10,000 barrier for the first time. A good omen, surely?

But then just a few days later the Minister got news that Brian Thompson was taking up a new job as chairman and chief executive of GTS, the US-based global telecommunications company. After some hurried research by advisers AIB and Merrill Lynch, she decided that the position would be in conflict with his Telecom role. The Minister's woes were further compounded by the departure of Telecom's deputy chairman, Ron Bolger.

One of the net results of the musical chairs at Telecom is that Ms O'Rourke has an interesting appointment next Wednesday when she is scheduled to officially open the new corporate headquarters of none other than GTS Ireland. The irony, of course, is that this is a subsidiary of the company which wooed Mr Thompson.

It is to be hoped that the Minister will be able to fulfill this engagement and will not have to cite a potential conflict of interest on the matter!