No doubt that £4 million-plus salaryman Dr Michael Smurfit is assembling his Pringle jumpers and two-tone shoes for Smurfit's annual golf-fest in the K Club, the European Open.

The cream of the European tour will compete for a pot of £1 million of Smurfit money at the beginning of August. How this will sit with Smurfit shareholders battered by the halving in the value of their shares in the past six months is a moot point.

Three months ago, a lot was made by Smurfit about the industry getting to grips with the perennial problems of oversupply. A much greater discipline existed in the industry. No new plants were coming on stream, the balance between demand and supply was coming back into kilter etc.

Well, three months later this much-trumpeted discipline in the industry doesn't seem to have achieved very much. Industry figures last week showed a rise of 26,500 tonnes in US containerboard inventories to more than three million tonnes - compared with a historical decline in the period of 87,000 tonnes, according to Dolmen Butler Briscoe.

That means that there is now almost five week's supply of containerboard sitting in warehouses compared to four week's previously. As Dolmen comments this week, in a masterly piece of understatement: "These figures are not very positive."

Smurfit will no doubt point out that the recent linerboard price increases have stuck, but if inventories remain at such a high level at a time when they should be reducing, then there are clear danger signs.

For Smurfit's poor shareholders, there is little sign of relief. Just as Eircom shareholders have no option but to sit tight and hope for the best, the same motto regrettably applies to Smurfit shareholders who have seen their investments plunge in value far more dramatically than Eircom shareholders have had to suffer.

Maybe it's time Michael Smurfit got the same sort of flak from his shareholders that Alfie Kane has had to endure in the past few months.