THE 18th Century economist Adam Smith once famously observed that when "people of the same trade" meet together, the conversation generally ends "in a conspiracy against the public or some contrivance to raise prices".

The Government and our trade unions may not appear to be in the "same trade" but, as with so many other things, the Bertie Ahern school of social partnership blurred these lines to such an extent it often looked as though our public sector employees were the bosses and the Government merely existed to serve their needs.

Sadly, it did look as though the great love affair had finally fizzled out under the pressure of Brian Lenihan's need for €1.3bn, which the trade unions were not willing to give.

Of course, in better times a device would have been found to sort all this out, for nobody, and in particular this administration, likes a fight.

The problem, however, was that the soft spines of the two Brians had been unavoidably stiffened by the interest of the EU and the world bond markets in our affairs.

Last week, however, in a move which is all too redolent of the staged deals in the appeasement process, suddenly everyone was friends again as we were told a magic formula which could save us all had just been discovered.

However, as the usual spin about dramatic negotiations "going to the wire" hit the television screens, was this actually good news for the tax-payer?

As a toxic troika of ministers, top civil service mandarins and their trade union stooges secretly met behind the iron bars of Government Buildings, all the talk might have been about "transformation".

But when our troika come up with phrases like "bridging mechanisms", the wise individual should immediately detect the beginnings of yet another "conspiracy against the public".

In truth, it is difficult to see how even this Government could manage to save their union friends at the expense of the people, because both Cowen and Lenihan have been united over the inevitability of cuts.

However, the trade union leader Peter McLoone appeared to be convinced that the new talks with the Government would achieve a loaves-and-fishes-style miracle where €1.3bn could be cut from public sector pay without lowering wages.

Intriguingly, no one from the Government was contradicting our man.

Instead, Brian Cowen played quite the deaf mute when Eamon Gilmore noted that Fianna Fail had actually robbed Labour's clothes on public sector reform.

Sadly, we should not get too excited over this little fiscal miracle, for like any timeshare agreement, it was swiftly evident the devil was, as usual, lurking in the detail.

In the aftermath of their triumphant return to the sanctuary of the much-loved familiar corridors of Government Buildings, the unions revealed that their plan was based upon secret government proposals for the reform of the public sector.

However, since this would be impossible to implement until 2011 they were putting forward these new "bridging mechanisms" incorporating changes to overtime, mandatory unpaid leave and longer working weeks for 2010.

The critical element of these cuts was, however, that they would be a "temporary" little affair which would cease once the proposed reforms were introduced.

Sadly, it was difficult to be impressed by Mr McLoone's extremely "modest proposal".

It is bad enough to realise we have been so loosely governed, that even after all of Mr Lenihan's emergency Budgets there is so much fat around the public sector that €1.3bn can be saved without even touching core pay.

As another union leader proudly noted, there were "an abundance" of allowances to be cut. It was even more depressing to note that after 12 years in power Fianna Fail needs yet another year to implement a genuine programme of public sector reform.

It is an astonishing confession of political failure by a party that must know decades of benchmarking and lazy maladministration has created a public sector that is the administrative equivalent of a rotten borough.

When it comes to the pickle we are in, the banks may well be our current designated villains.

But while €70bn of taxpayers' money is being spent just to make sure they can open the door in the morning over the next five years, a similar amount will be borrowed just to pay our public sector workers. If the latter were actually efficient, such a burden could be justified.

But instead the Government has presided over the evolution of a public sector which is as ungovernable as our banks.

The Government and the unions are right in admitting we need to cut costs but whilst we have the McCarthy report, this is driven by no higher purpose than the State's looming inability to pay the wages.

That is a pressing enough sort of issue.

However, wage cuts alone will not sort out the current disgrace where even outwardly simple tasks such as answering Freedom of Information requests or the means-testing of child benefit are seen as posing the system with some sort of crisis.

The toxic troika of mandarins, politicians and trade unionists may be attempting to save their skins through the careful old road of reform.

But it is becoming increasingly evident that only revolution will deal with mysteries such as our teachers' four-month long summer holidays, the 300 per cent pay differential between UK and Irish hospital consultants or the potential €1m pension pot gardai who retire at 50 are entitled to.

In truth, we are now so badly governed we might not even get reform.

It would be nice if we could say we were being too suspicious in wondering if another dirty little deal was being done between the toxic troika last week.

However, the anxiety of our trade unionists to stay in the negotiating game leaves the Government unnervingly open to the claim that the current rapprochement is another classic case of the FF politics of a nod and a wink and we'll return to the same easy old unreformed system once the country picks up again.

As trade unionists anxiously claimed that any cutbacks under the current deal would be strictly "temporary measures", only a fool would not wonder if a fix was not already in where if the unions called off the dogs of war -- and got the Government off the hook -- any future reforms would be union-proofed.

It's all a long way away from the reassuring smack of firm government we would have received from Albert or Ray MacSharry.

Instead this resembled one of Bertie's patented fake formulae where, after some temporary pain, our unions, mandarins and Government would be looked after as the poor taxpayer assumed the usual position.

The Government, mandarins and unions may claim all they want that we have moved away from the politics of jam today, reform tomorrow, but the unfortunate Trojans learned the hard way that you should always beware of Greeks bearing gifts.

We, too, would be wise to be equally wary about any deal cooked up in private by the uniquely Irish toxic troika that have played such a central role in bringing us to where we are today.

Sunday Independent