Denis Casey has just won a seat at the boardroom at Irish Life & Permanent: all he needs now is a win from the Dublin football team to make it a truly great year.

The 40-year-old Dubliner is chief executive of the group's life and pensions business, which sells policies to individuals across the Republic. It employs 1,500 staff, largely brokers and sales staff, many of whom still collect regular premiums by calling to customers' homes. It's a business he knows well and one which is booming in the current economic conditions.

Frankly he loves his job.

"The job I have is just a great job. This is a great time to be running the largest life business in Ireland because the investment market is exploding and the pension market is growing very rapidly."

Of course, it can be stressful but Mr Casey says he has learned to manage his time and stress levels well and has no shortage of interests to maintain a healthy balance in his life.

"A job like this is always stressful so it's a question of how you deal with the stress. I find a good night's sleep is a great healer. I guess I am lucky that I don't carry stress from day to day or from week to week.

"There is nobody at any kind of a senior level in business now who isn't working a 60-hour week. That goes with the territory but I do try to keep weekends free. Monday to Friday is pretty well about the job and weekends I keep for myself."

At the weekends, Mr Casey spends most of his time ferrying his three children, who range in age from four to 12, to football, hurling, horseriding and whatever else is on their agenda. "I get good craic out of that and it is so different from what I am doing from Monday to Friday. It's good fun standing at the sidelines shouting at 11-year-olds playing football, being the usual demented parent."

He also has many sporting interests himself, his most recent being scuba diving. "I tried it out on holidays and found it totally absorbing. It certainly takes your mind off the day-to-day stresses of the job. When you are 50 or 60 feet under water trying to remember how to breathe it becomes totally absorbing." He has just received his first-level proficiency certificate and is looking forward to exploring the waters over the summer months. He has also recently taken up golf.

His greatest passion is undoubtedly GAA and the fortunes of the Dublin team. "I am a big fan of Dublin. They break my heart regularly and religiously every year but I am very hopeful this could be Dublin's year. My wife is from Tipperary so she is a big hurling fan. When we are not watching Dublin football, it's Tipperary hurling and the kids are big into it as well so it's a fun thing we do together."

His day starts at around 7.30 a.m. and he finishes sometime between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. There can be some travelling involved, mainly visiting Irish Life & Permanent's brokers and sales force around the State. "I aim to be as accessible and as approachable as possible to the people who actually make this business work."

Mr Casey has worked at Irish Life for 20 years, gaining experience in most of the key areas during his career.

He gravitated to the financial services sector on leaving St Kevin's Christian Brothers School at Ballygall, in Dublin. At the age of 16, he secured a job as a post boy at AIB where his duties involved carrying letters to Suffolk Street Post Office, usually in the rain, he says.

Some time later he graduated to calculating interest on customer accounts. This was a very precise discipline and one which he claims he could still complete in his sleep.

After six months, he decided it was time for a change. "I came to the conclusion that, if I wasn't going to be calculating interest for the rest of my life, I should get some kind of qualification."

He opted to study accountancy. Over half of the students he joined were already working for Irish Life. He learned the company had a well organised trainee scheme for accountants and he decided to apply. He joined Irish Life in 1980 quickly moving from being a trainee accountant in the information technology division where he trained as a computer programmer and systems analyst.

In 1986 he moved over to the group's British business spending the next four or five years commuting and eventually living there until 1990.

Ten years ago, Irish Life was about to be privatised by the Government and Mr Casey worked on the project. Subsequently, he was appointed group financial controller, with responsibility for investor relations in the new public company. He moved to the retail pensions and life division in 1995 and succeeded its former head, Ms Jean Wood in 1998 after a radical restructuring exercise.

This appointment came at a difficult time. In 1997 the company found itself embroiled in a long and bitter industrial dispute with its sales staff and Mr Casey admits it took some time for wounds to heal.

"It took six to nine months to restore morale. It was middle of 1998 before we were really beginning to put that episode behind us. But since we've turned that corner we haven't looked back. We had a very successful year in 1998. Morale and enthusiasm among the sales force is at an all-time high. Things have really turned around."

During his career at Irish Life, Mr Casey has taken on a new job roughly every three to four years. This variety has made his time at the company very interesting and is the reason why he is still there, he says.

"Irish Life is pretty good at rotating its people. I guess I would have seen more change than most. It is great for the business to come to new jobs and take on new challenges. It is also great for the business, as it means different parts of the business are being looked at and managed by people with fresh ideas on a regular basis."

And his next move?

Mr Casey says he never looks at what the next job might be. For the time being he is enjoying himself. "We are having great fun and enjoying great success."