Europe cut off.'

The real situation could be summed up as: 'Two drivers get the hump. Rail network comes to a standstill'. What was interesting about the strike was the reaction from the public.

There was no sympathy for the drivers. The overwhelming sentiment was one of outrage that in this era of sophisticated industrial mechanisms, the personal concerns of two individuals could paralyse a large section of society. This feeling was confirmed in the embarrassment expressed by sources in the men's union.

It wasn't always so. Twenty years ago, news of "unofficial action" spilled from headlines on a regular basis.

Then, the public shrugged its shoulders and tried to get on with things. There was a general acceptance that this was the way of the world, and, maybe, we deserve no better. National self-esteem was down in the pit. We were living in a different country.

In that country from the past, what would they have made of 41 Afghanis embarking on a hunger strike in St Patrick's Cathedral? One suspects that among the populace, there would have been a well of compassion.

These are people from one of the most dangerous and poorest countries in the world. Some of them have lived here for five years.

They include youths for whom Afghanistan is an alien country. And to embark on something as extreme as refusing to take food, it must be assumed that fear and desperation are to the fore of their minds.

In the Ireland of the 1980s, there would have been a certain affinity with these wretches, a feeling that bad and all as things might be on our septic isle, at least we were not reduced to that level of despair.

Last week, the tone of radio talk shows was practically uniform. These people are trying it on. It's a stunt.

They are queue-jumping blackmailers. Not an inch.

All that was missing was Thatcher's voice booming over the airwaves that any truck with these fraudsters was "out, out out".

The cynicism on display was disturbing. A tone was set from on high. The Minister for Justice spoke of a "socalled hunger strike". He said just because there were "disturbances" in Afghanistan, it didn't mean everybody was in danger. 'Disturbances', minister, are what happen in Ranelagh of a Saturday night.

Murder, systematic terrorising and frequent bombing is the daily lot of Afghanistan.

Then we had Bertie Ahern. "We're not going to give way to threats, " says he.

And right you are, Bertie, you cuddly son of a gun.

These dangerous forces will not do down our brave Taoiseach. He will stand tall with his socialist brothers and sisters to ensure that everyone gets a fair deal, but he will not take threats from the weakest that the world throws up on our shore. Our Bertie is a compassionate soul, as the illegal Irish in the US know, and, more importantly, so do their relatives back home who vote.

In the 1980s, any time the matter of a hunger strike arose, government figures reacted with an awareness of the compassion desperate measures can spark among the public. There is no suggestion the government should have immediately acquiesced to the Afghanis' demands . But the tone from our leaders spoke volumes of the prevailing political culture when it comes to dealing with the most vulnerable.

Bad and all as this posturing by politicians is, far more worrying is the feeling apparently abroad among the wider public. Cynicism has replaced compassion.

Where once there was an instinct to embrace the wretched, now there is suspicion that those at the lowest rungs might somehow threaten our new way of life.

Times change. We are no longer willing to be held to ransom on the whim of a few train drivers. But on the wings of that change, there is an unsettling question that won't go away. What exactly have we become?