You could almost feel sorry for Alfie Kane. He is the hard-working chief executive of a successful company which in the last year has floated on the stock market, increased sales by 10 per cent and profits by almost 18 per cent to £337 million. There is a problem with the share price but that is primarily due to factors outside his control and he did warn the Government that it set the price too high. All he wants now is to be paid the sort of money which anybody running a company the size of Eircom could expect.

Instead, he is attacked in the media over the collapsing share price and this week had the details of his £1.5 million pay package publicly dissected. The idea that he should now receive share options potentially worth more than £1 million has driven some commentators into paroxysms of rage.

Less than a mile across Dublin from Mr Kane's office overlooking St Stephen's Green is another telecoms company called Esat. It has never made a profit and has debts in the region of £270 million but its chairman, Mr Denis O'Brien, is worshipped by the Irish business classes because he sold it to British Telecom this year for £2.5 billion and in the process trousered almost £250 million.

Instead of being accused of corporate greed and opportunism on a grand scale, Mr O'Brien is instead asked to join the board of Bank of Ireland.

The two men could not be more different: Mr O'Brien (42), the ambitious scion of a wealthy Dublin businessman born into middle-class privilege, and Mr Kane (56), the dour presbyterian from Limavady, Co Derry, who started out as an apprentice with the Post Office.

It is an over-simplification to say that the two men's differing fortunes are related to their personalities, but no one will deny that Mr Kane's lack of charisma has contributed to the heat he is currently feeling.

He was seen as the ultimate outsider when he joined Telecom Eireann - as Eircom then was - in April 1994. He had worked all his life for the Post Office and its offshoot, British Telecom. He rose through the ranks to become chief executive of British Telecom Northern Ireland in 1984, having obtained a degree in electrical engineering from Queen's University, Belfast, along the way.

Mr Kane was hired with a particular job in mind: to break the semi-State culture at Telecom and prepare the company for the opening up of the Irish telecommunications industry to full competition as demanded by the European Commission.

A stock market flotation was always a possibility but considered a non-runner as Labour, then in government, had set its face against it.

He tackled the job with gusto, trimming the workforce and overseeing the successful expansion of the company's mobile communications business into Eircell, the largest mobile operator. His blunt approach won him few friends in the media or, more importantly, in the Department of Public Enterprise which had responsibility for the company.

Mr Kane has never bought a house in Dublin. He lives with his wife, Isobel, and one of his daughters, Christina, in a rented house in Rathmines - paid for by Eircom. Another daughter is married and lives in England.

His decision not to buy in Dublin was not due to any lack of long-term commitment to Eircom but the belief that Dublin property was overpriced, say friends.

For the first couple of years Mr Kane did not socialise much in Dublin, preferring to return to Northern Ireland or Manchester - where he was previously head of worldwide networks for BT - on the weekends. Over the years, however, the couple has started to socialise more in Dublin, although most of his after-work activities tends to be in some way related to business.

"The dour Northern Prod thing is a bit over-done. He puts work ahead of most things but he is not that bad," according to one friend. He is not - as many believe - a teetotaller. Hill-walking is his favourite pastime; he approaches it with characteristic vigour and determination, more akin to mountaineering than Sunday afternoon rambles.

Eireann might not have always been on the Government agenda but it was always the plan for Mr Kane. He first hinted at the prospect In late 1996, Telecom Eireann formed a strategic alliance with KPN, the Dutch phone company, and Telia, its Swedish counterpart. Mr Kane was criticised over this deal - seen as poor value for the State - but was vindicated when it netted the Government more than £1 billion last year as part of a clawback negotiated at the time.

There is no doubt that Mr Kane deserves the lion's share of the credit for successfully bringing Telecom to the market. The overmanned and inefficient semi-State company increased in value more than sevenfold under his stewardship. The issue now is whether the skills and abilities which enabled Mr Kane to turn around Telecom are the ones needed to head up Eircom.

At the moment Mr Kane does not appear to have a definitive plan for the company. Normally a number of strategic moves could be expected in the first year after flotation to underpin the share price and win investor confidence but they did not happen.

Inevitably, comparisons are made with Mr O'Brien who has successfully wooed investors in the US and Europe without ever paying a penny in dividends or making profits.

"Denis probably doesn't care how a mobile phone works while Alfie knows exactly how they work. The thing is, if you had a presentation from Denis followed by one from Alfie, you would probably invest with Denis," explains one institutional investor in Dublin.

Mr Kane's interpersonal skills are not his greatest strength. His can be dismissive of those whose knowledge of the industry and technology does not match his.

More significant doubts have been raised about his ability to play politics. He has let himself become a lightning rod for all the bad news about the Eircom share price. The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, set the price along with Government colleagues but has escaped any serious criticism. Similarly, the chairman of the company, Mr Ray MacSharry, a well-seasoned politician, has been allowed to stay in the shadows.

His biggest blunder was to admit on national radio last May that the flotation price was too high. His supporters point out that this more than anything testified to Mr Kane's inherent honesty and sense of morality. "He was asked a direct question and felt obliged to give a straight answer," explains a friend.

Colleagues agree about Mr Kane's innate decency. "If you go to him with a grievance he will always look into it carefully. He is just a very straight guy and that does not always fit in with the culture here," says one Eircom executive who knows him well.

Next month shareholders in Eircom will vote on whether they think Mr Kane deserves his £1 million share bonus scheme. He will probably get it - thanks to the support of the big institutions - but he may have to show a little more guile if wants to collect it.