It's not just because Eircom shareholders lost a lot of money that Alfie's lootis obscene. It is obscene in itself, writes Eddie Holt.
What's it all about, Alfie? The begrudgery directed at a top person like you proves that Ireland remains a peasant country resentful of success. It must be excruciating to suffer the ignorant malice of so many provincial yokels.
Clearly, these bumpkins don't and never will understand the commercial complexities, intense intricacies and sublime subtleties of business.
Still, top people throughout history have had to remain sanguine when faced with such naked bigotry. It can't be easy, but you must forgive the seething Scrooges for they know no better. These yokels - a common herd of around 500,000 - got burned when they bought shares in Eircom. Now they have the gall to rail against your modest severance "package" of €3.8 million.
After all, your "package" was sanctioned by the "remuneration committee" of the former Eircom board. This august outfit was, of course, comprised of other top people: Ray MacSharry, Dick Spring, Jim Flavin and Martin Pieters. Indeed, so seriously did these top people take their task of rewarding the top person - that is, you - that they worked for a mere €70,000 (or so) each.
Such selflessness is rare in the contemporary rat race. Nonetheless, the begrudgers continue to whine and whinge. One begrudger pointed out that a person on average industrial earnings of €497.45 a week would have to work for 147 years to amass the sum of your severance "package" alone. What can you say? ("lies, damned lies and statistics," I suppose, even though it's true.)
Remember that the bumpkins don't even appreciate the difference between non-top people on wages or salaries and the top people with "remuneration packages". It's obvious that the mercenary common herd can think of nothing other than money. How typically vulgar! But top people are different, very different. They know that money is just an ancillary matter.
Top people deserve "remuneration packages", which include mere money, of course, but that's not the crucial thing, is it? Top people know it's performance that counts. In fact, to optimise performance, top people - you included - do not spare themselves. It is this selfless desire for dynamism and unceasing effort that prompts top people to "incentivise" each other.
Lest there be any danger of slacking (perish the thought!), those huge extra carrots guarantee performance, don't they? Sure, few chief executives, even those hauling in a miserly €300,000 a year, need further incentives. But just in case the urge to shirk work - albeit extremely rare - afflicts a pressurised top person, the incentives are a safeguard for the interests of the common herd.
Look, Alfie, the petty peasants can't even understand the necessity for wage restraint. These bolshie yokels think it's logical to point out that, even leaving aside your €1,079,277 compo for "loss of office", it would take a person on average industrial earnings about 108 working years to earn the €2,807,750 you got for "pension contributions".
Indeed, one particularly belligerent begrudger had the gall to argue that, were he to retire at 65 on a full two-thirds, index-linked pension, based on average industrial earnings, he'd be grand until around his 227th birthday, so long as he had your level of Eircom contributions. Really, the effrontery of such a yokel comparing himself to a top person! But that is the country we live in now. Top people in exquisitely understated chalk-stripe suits, blue shirts with white collars and shiny yellow ties are just not appreciated. The unstylish and uncouth herd is restless, constantly moaning about the cost of everything (yes, with them it's always money, money, money!), the traffic and the lethal cutting of medical services in the "sticks".
And so it goes - or could go. The loot given to Alfie Kane, the former Eircom chief executive, is not, as Mary O'Rourke described it, "entirely inappropriate". It is obscene. The sole moral defence for giving Alfie a €3.8 million handshake is that few in his position would turn it down. Then again, that's not really a moral defence. At best, it's a moronic justification of gross inequity.
It's not because Eircom shareholders lost a lot of money - gambling involves risk - that Alfie's loot is obscene. It is obscene in itself. At a time when increasing numbers of people are feeling pinched for money and fearful about their futures, €3.8 million for failing spectacularly - whether it's Alfie's fault or not - is a form of financial pornography.
Investors must take the rough with the smooth - that, after all, is the market game - but not, it seems, for a top person like Alfie. It's telling that in a week when the Brits were told they'd have to save more and/or work longer, even Alfie's "pension contributions" from Eircom amount to more than a century of paid employment for the average worker.
Even ludicrously overpaid footballers don't get a win bonus when they lose or draw. Performance, after all, means performance. The language is clear. But the language of top people in business - the "remuneration packages" (pay and perks); the "loss of office" (losing their jobs) and even the term "top people" (bosses) - is crassly designed to aggrandise their gigs.
It doesn't. Such vainglorious language vulgarises business. Certainly, particularly able, assiduous and talented people deserve additional rewards in whatever line of work they do. But enough is enough. In the US in 1980, the average chief executive made 42 times the average worker's hourly pay; in 1990, she or he made 85 times the amount; by 2001, 411 times the amount.
As yet, comparable rapacity hasn't reached Ireland. We're not there yet, but we're getting there. As in the US, bosses like Alfie can have their cake and eat it because, no doubt, they believe they're "worth it". Dear, oh dear. Still, at least we know what it's all about now Alfie, don't we?