To justify a strike, you have to fulfil two basic conditions.

First, it must be taken against a specific proposal from employers.

Second, it must be shown that there's a clear and realistic alternative to those proposals.

Today's action failed to meet either of those conditions. Since we're still two weeks away from the Budget, the strikers don't yet have anything concrete to protest against.

More to the point, the unions have failed to come up with any constructive suggestions apart from the tired old slogan of "tax the rich" -- a completely outdated solution to a 21st Century crisis.

If there really was a pot of gold out there, any sensible government would surely have raided it by now.

As Brian Lenihan has repeatedly made clear, however, that well is now effectively dry. The Government simply has no choice but to slash its spending bill, regardless of the political consequences -- and since public sector pay rose by 59pc between 2000 and 2008, it's the logical place to start.

This doesn't mean that people aren't entitled to be angry. There's any number of reasons to be hopping mad at the way we've been governed over the last few years, from the mishandling of the property bubble to the greed of the banking sector.

Last week's row over the AIB chief executive's salary suggested that some people still haven't got the message, while the floods and the hand of Thierry Henry have also helped to deepen the national depression.

In the final analysis, feeling sorry for ourselves is not enough. Today's strike may have helped some people to let off steam, but it didn't save a single euro or rescue a single job.

The only people it hurt are those who rely most on our public services, the sick and the vulnerable the unions claim to represent.

Over the next 24 hours, crunch talks will take place in Government Buildings in the hope of avoiding another day of action between now and December 9.

Right now, things don't look good. They may have to get worse before they get better.

In the long run, however, the Government most hold firm against the strikers -- because the alternative really would see this country sink beneath the waves.

- Andrew Lynch