Did you ever notice that when the great and the good - the IMF, OECD and central bankers to name a few - press for action to be taken "for the greater good of the economy", the first thing they do is urge those poor souls at the bottom of the pile to take the pain. The latest case in point is the realistic fear that the pace of wage inflation could jeopardise some of the great strides the Irish economy has taken out of the doldrums of the early 1980s.

Any sensible person can see that if Irish labour prices itself out of the market, the multinationals will move elsewhere to cut their costs; if the multinationals move on, enough research has been done to indicate that this move would single-handedly undermine the buoyancy of our economy. And anyone who doubts the underlying motivation of the multinationals need only examine the track record of the clothing and textiles sector in the Republic. However, it seems patently unfair to yet again single out the poor put-upon PAYE worker for a lecture on the need for fiscal rectitude at a time when the Government seems absolutely unwilling or unable to control the spiralling cost of the public sector.

Equally, it is asking for industrial unrest to expect workers to exercise restraint at a time when company bosses are rewarding themselves with inflation and Partnership 2000-busting pay deals. Certainly, company executives are paid in part for the responsibility they are expected to accept, but bonuses, share options and special pension provisions in remuneration deals already do that outside of the pay element, rightly or wrongly. The other argument for higher executive pay was the risk element - underperforming bosses face the sack. Increasingly, however, their staff also face redundancy under "rationalisation" or "reorganisation", which often accompanies such purges.