Business Opinion: It is that time of year again. When we at Business Opinion look back over the year and celebrate the achievements of the business and political community.

In keeping with previous years we start with the Deal Of The Year. The judges' job was made easy for them this year as one deal stood head and shoulders above the others. It was of course the second tranche of civil service and public sector benchmarking which was agreed this month and is payable next month. In what will come to be seen as a master stroke the Government has negotiated a range of mostly non-specific, unquantified and pretty much unmeasurable changes in the way civil and public servants work for the knockdown price of just over €1 billion, when the 3 per cent rise due under Sustaining Progress is included.

What particularly impressed the judges was the decision to make the payment conditional on performance verification groups verifying that the civil and public servants had implemented the mostly non-specific, unquantified and pretty much unmeasurable changes. It would be unfair to single out any one individual such as the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, to receive the award so it will be presented to the Cabinet collectively.

Similarly, the George Redmond Trophy for economic and social planning goes to the entire Cabinet in recognition of the inspired long-term thinking that underlies the move to decentralise the civil service.

Moving on to business awards proper, the Trotter Trading Special Award goes to Mr John Lepp, who is the latest in a long list of English wide boys who have come unstuck in Ireland. Mr Lepp was the principle of Freshaer, the new low-cost airline whose star burned briefly but rather brightly during the summer thanks to a big Independent News & Media promotion. Despite brushing aside a few teething problems - such as not being regulated in Ireland - Mr Lepp finally had to call it a day when it emerged he was banned from being a director in the UK.

Sticking with the media, this year's Gavin O'Reilly Special Achievement Award goes to James Murdoch. Like Mr O'Reilly, the chief operations officer of Independent News & Media, he had to overcome the handicap of having a father who is the controlling shareholder to rise to the top of BSkyB.

This year the Michael O'Leary Excellence In Public Relations Award goes to CIÉ, which decided to close the DART every weekend in December with two days' notice. There was stiff competition for this award from Denis O'Brien, who let fly at those who suggested there might be something less than patriotic about his decision to live in Portugal when he trousered €290 million from the sale of Esat Telecom three years ago .

His performance in this regard may have seen Mr O'Brien come out top in the new reality TV show: I am an Irish entrepreneur... get me out of here, but there was to be no prize for the telecoms tycoon this year.

His fierce attack on the pernicious evils of communism and how they are undermining the Republic did receive a special commendation from the judging panel awarding the Pádraig Pearse Independence Medal but this award was won hands down by Cormac McCarthy of First Active who stoutly defended the concept of his bank's independence while quietly negotiating its sale to Bank of Scotland.

Robbie Kelleher, the head of research at Davy Stockbrokers, once again features in our awards. This year he gets the Always Look On The Bright Side Statuette for having managed to spot the spectre of deflation while everyone else was breathing a sigh of relief that inflation was at last on the way down. Let's hope that, for once, he is wrong.

The Inspector Clouseau Award for proof reading goes to the Department of Finance which managed to include a €63.5 million investment in the VHI in the Public Capital Programme "by mistake". The VHI itself wins the Pablo Escobar Memorial Get Off The Drugs Award for even asking for a capital injection while the health service was in meltdown.

The Saddam Hussein Crisis Management Award goes to Noel Hanlon, the chairman of Aer Rianta. As the forces of the coalition (Séamus Brennan and Bertie Ahern) massed at the gates of Dublin Airport, Mr Hanlon's defiance was an inspiration to his people. He has now offered to negotiate with Mr Brennan.

This year sees a new award in the form of the Jeffrey Donaldson Cup for long-term loyalty which goes to Dermot Desmond for providing interim finance to the management buyout of his old firm, NCB.

Also new this year is the John Rusnak Irish Banker Of The Year Trophy which goes to Matt Barrett, the chairman of Barclays who told a House of Commons committee that he would not let his children borrow on credit cards. Also in banking, the Bank of Ireland gets the prestigious Rio Ferdinand Absentmindedness Award for forgetting which day it was publishing its interim results and sending them out a day early. These things happen.

Finally, there is the Lazarus Award For Best Comeback. This is shared by Alfie Kane, former Eircom chief executive, and Paddy Teahon, former Bertie Bowl supremo, who both popped up on the board of Vodafone Ireland.