Eircom is celebrating its first anniversary as a public company, if celebrate is the right word. While there is little left to be said about the company's current plight, the release of bonus shares to investors next week bolsters a harsh lesson to those hundreds of thousands of small investors who bought the hype and dipped their toes into the market for the first time when the former State telecoms company went public last year.

It has proved a costly lesson for many but maybe, with a host of flotations of State-owned enterprises on the horizon and the current tendency for every moderately successful high-tech incubator to come to market as soon as possible, it will save many money over the longer term. A hugely successful float of Eircom a la Irish Permanent, for instance - might have led many to think they could not lose and lure the unwary deeper into trouble with fickle equity investments. As Eircom investors weigh up their one bonus share for every 25 held, one hopes they will, in future, look at a company's fundamentals, rather than any hype surrounding it, when they look at where to place their money.