IN the upper echelons of corporate management there are, to use a tabloid analogy, "fat cats" and "thin cats". The fat cats, like Michael Smurfit, chairman of the Smurfit Group, control public companies at the highest levels of the private sector, their large salaries and fringe benefits commensurate with onerous responsibilities to the company, its employees and shareholders.

The thin cats, such as Eddie O'Connor of Bord na Mona, possess the same management qualities and carry an equally heavy burden of responsibility. They, however, pursue their careers in the semi state sector, where the personal rewards for success are considerably lower.

This week, while both Price Waterhouse and a Government team pursue independent examinations of Mr O'Connor's pay deal, the Jefferson Smurfit Group, answerable only to its shareholders, is changing the way bonus payments for its chairman are calculated.

A new incentive package has been introduced linking the group's profit performance to the long term return to shareholders. The decision could lead to total bonus payments of £20 million to Dr Smurfit over four years if certain targets are achieved.

The Smurfit annual report shows that nine executive directors shares £12.6 million last year, of which £9.7 million was bonus payments, the benefits further enhanced by the group's share option plan.

At the poor relation end of the corporate spectrum, Eddie O'Connor, architect of the transformation in Bord na Mona's trading fortunes, awaits the outcome of the various reports and a public hearing at the Dail Committee on State Sponsored Bodies.

Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of this particular case, failure to tackle reform of semi state salaries will keep the commercial semi state cats on a diet of skimmed milk, their more fortunate contemporaries being well content to lap the cream in the private sector.