It's the first time a day of protest ever happened, in advance of a Budget. Up to now, unions and other representative bodies did a ritual dance in the months before the Minister for Finance unveiled his plans. They sent submissions to the Department. They held press conferences.

"Please don't take this course of action," the submissions would say. "On the face of it, it would save X million. But the downside would be enormous. Much better if you took the following steps instead."

That got even more civilised in the Partnership Years.

Today marked the end of an era of cosy, cushy sharing of the goodies. Public sector workers were furious, BEFORE the Government took radical action affecting them. That's new. Trade unions flexed their muscle, BEFORE sitting down, as it's rumoured they will, to discuss what Brian Lenihan's going to do to them.

The placards carried a variety of messages. But they all boiled down to one: "We've taken enough. Go punish someone else."

And, as the Cabinet received reports from different cities about the scale of the protest, their thinking could be similarly boiled down to one response: "Everybody has to take more pain. We've no alternative."

It's a pointless standoff. Even if the Government meets the trade unions in the next few days, all they can do is shift deckchairs on the economic Titanic. They can agree to cut back on one imposition and expand another. But the objective ultimatum stays the same. They have to take €4bn out of Ireland's household budget. No ifs, buts or maybes.

The grim faces of the trade union leaders, photographed together in advance of the day of protest, summed up the impossibility of the situation.

Yes, they can claim to have put a quarter of a million people on the street. The pictures hammer home the scale of the operation. Yes, that sends a message to Government that the trade union movement is on the march in a way it hasn't been for decades. If the Government had alternatives, they would undoubtedly deploy them. But Ireland Inc is fresh out of alternatives.

Grim

That's the grim bottom line. This Fianna Fail-led Government is going to do things that run counter to everything it stands for. It doesn't need the trade union movement to establish how dire are the actions it will take. And, although it will meet trade union leaders and work hard to get to a position where a reasonably positive joint statement can be issued, it knows it has no significant room for manoeuvre.

So what was the point of it all, today? There is, of course, the school of thought that expressing anger is a basic human need and that marching in the street is standing up for ourselves. Many of today's marchers will experience a transient excitement and sense of power.

But they will go home to turn down the heat another few degrees, search for forgotten change in coat pockets and do deals with friends and relatives to cut down Christmas present expectations -- while they wait, with dread, for the Budget.

Meanwhile, workers and the newly jobless from the private sector had their lives made more difficult by today's action and feel even more resentful against the permanent and pensionable public sector.

You have to hope that there's a secret plan somewhere. That the trade unions and the Government know what happens next. And that the energy of today's protests can be channelled into working towards getting us out of our economic woes.

Here's hoping ...

- Terry Prone