The proposed resolution, tabled by dissident Tesco shareholder and antipoverty campaigner Ben Birnberg, failed to get fellow shareholders at the world's third-largest retailer to agree the measure. But Birnberg told the Sunday Tribune he had succeeded in raising awareness of the issue of corporate social repsonsiblity at Tesco. He also urged Irish shareholders here to continue to put pressure on Tesco and other companies that use low-cost manufacturing suppliers in the developing world, such as Penneys, to address the issue.

The retired lawyer caused a stir at Tesco's AGM in London when he secured 9.34% of shareholders' support for his motion. Its presence on the Tesco agenda was a minor victory, after a media campaign persuaded management to allow it to go to a vote.

"Irish campaigners should use internal company democracies to highlight important issues as it becomes increasingly difficult to surmount the hurdles of using political democracy and I encourage your readers to consider this, " he told the Sunday Tribune.

Tesco chief executive Terry Leahy . . .a Liverpudlian of Irish stock who was appointed a senior adviser to new British prime minister Gordon Brown last week . . . faced another shareholder rebellion over proposals to pay him a �10m bonus if he pulls off the company's expansion in North America.

More than 16% of Tesco shareholders voted against the bonus for Leahy, who reportedly earned �4.6m last year.

The 16% figure raised eyebrows in the City as resolutions in FTSE100 companies are usually passed by at least 95% of voting members, indicating that some institutional shareholders were not happy about the plan.

"There is nothing that lowers a company more in the estimation of rightthinking people than a public display of executive greed in an affluent world going hand in hand with a public display of corporate miserliness and indifference towards those at the bottom in an impoverished world who contribute so munificently to our corporate wealth, " said Birnberg in his address to shareholders.