Most Eircom directors did not have shares, which sent out a clear message that they did not have confidence in the company, Senator Shane Ross told the meeting to cheers from the floor.
Mr Ross said he and Eamon Dunphy had became the voice of those who had been deprived of their money by the company.
"We received by yesterday, and these are audited figures by Computershare, over 28,000 letters of proxy and over 30 million votes. We intend to cast those votes against the share option scheme and against the re-election of directors," he said.
"I'd like to thank Standard Life, who has broken the cartel and will abstain on the first motion, and everybody here for the tremendous support they've given for opposing these particular resolutions and I'd like to thank, above all, and surprisingly, the Government, as the Government itself is casting its votes against this bonus scheme."
Mr Ross said the concession the chairman made to the people of the options vesting at €3 was not enough or acceptable.
He would like to ask a fundamental question: "Who has benefited from this company since it floated? Exactly - the boys."
Had it been the consumer? No, it had not because Eircom had been littered with consumer complaints. Had it been the shareholders who had seen the value of shares drop by 40 per cent? No, it had not. "The only people who are guaranteed to have benefited are the directors who have taken out enormous payments, unprecedented in my life that I've seen from any public company."
He was in favour, and he thought all of those who had written to him, were in favour of incentivisation. "I think directors should be given options, but not at the expense of ordinary shareholders and not if ordinary shareholders are suffering," he said.
If they did not believe him that the reason for the share fall was because of bad management, they should ask the market, KPN, and the directors themselves.
"Do you want me to read out their pitiful shareholdings?" he said. Annika Christiansson, Patrick Morley, Dick Spring, and Marten Pieters held none and Alfie Kane held about 11,000.
"And the others, all virtually multi-millionaires, have sent a clear message to shareholders that they don't have confidence in this company themselves. And why haven't they bought any shares in the last year since flotation? It is an extraordinary indictment and an insult to those of us who hold almost the same number of shares as the directors themselves."
The remuneration committee was a fig-leaf constantly produced by those defending this scheme. They said the committee would make an impartial and independent decision. "The reality of remuneration committees and particularly this one appears to be that they sit around and decide each other's pay, put it to the board which rubber-stamps it and come back and say this is fine, this is the industry norm."
He would ask the chairman to consider that three ordinary shareholders should sit on that remuneration committee. "Then we'll see what really happens behind the closed doors of Eircom."
The second fig-leaf was for them to say not to worry, as this had been passed by the Irish Association of Investment Mangers. It consisted of 17 or 18 fund managers from larger banks and insurance companies.