BEING the head of a consortium which is developing a new £50 million Dublin shopping centre might be considered a big enough venture to keep one person busy. But Paschal Taggart, the chairman of the company which is building the new Jervis Street project, has other ideas.

Not content with overseeing the reshaping of a large chunk of the capital's North inner city, Mr Taggart and other investors last week paid £6.6 million for a 17.6 acre site in the affluent southern Dublin suburb of Dundrum.

In Dundrum, the Taggart led group, which also contains one of his long time associates John Clohessy, plans to build a £40 million shopping centre, leisure complex and residential scheme on the site, which was acquired from the receiver appointed by ACCBank.

A Crazy Prices store occupies five acres adjacent to the development site, and the Taggart group has already cut a deal to include the land held by the supermarket group in its plans. In return, Crazy Prices' sister company Quinnsworth is to take ownership of a 40,000 square foot store in the new 200,000 square foot shopping centre.

Although Mr Taggart is taking a lead role in both groups, the main investors in Dundrum are not the same as those in the Jervis Street project, which will be completed by the autumn. "Each deal throws up different investors," he says.

Meanwhile, Paschal Taggart continues to make deals and act as a director and adviser to a host of other companies. In recent months this frenetic activity has also been combined with his energetic role as chairman of Bord na gCon, the semi State agency which controls the Irish greyhound racing industry.

Mention the prospect of a major new business deal in the Republic and the chances are that Paschal Taggart's name will be linked with it. Even allowing for the regular erroneous links, the Ulsterman still appears to cast his net quite wide.

Often the only common denominator appears to be Mr Taggart who, unlike other wealthy figures, does not mind being the public face of a deal. He admits that in major deals - such as failed £37 million offer for Premier Tir Laigheann - he is fronting for others. "I don't have that type of dough," he says with a laugh, however he often takes a reasonable stake in the ventures. Mr Taggart also admits that securing a major deal can create rivalry and sometimes enemies. "Often there's 20 people that want to do a deal so if you get it you can't expect the other 19 to be delighted."

Aside from the recent property developments, his business interests have included the food industry, bookmaking and the retail sector. When five consortiums made a bid for the new independent radio franchise earlier this year it was hardly surprising that Paschal Taggart was chairman of one of them.

Some might believe the only thing which drives such a man is the bottom line, but both long term associates and Taggart himself insist that in any business, the people are the most important factor. And he firmly believes in the importance of luck.

The Quinnsworth/Crazy Prices deal which has been negotiated for Dundrum is typical of the way Mr Taggart and his associates do business and is, in some respects, reminiscent of his greatest coup - the purchase and re sale of the H. Williams group. But with the Williams chain there was no property development needed.

In October 1987, a company called Aviette bought Williams's 33 stores and a warehouse in Tallaght from the receiver Laurence Crowley. Mr Taggart was the front man for a group of investors which included Noel Smyth, Brendan Gilmore, and a number of others.

Even before the deal with Mr Crowley was completed, Aviette, whose backers were never formally revealed, had agreed to sell four of the stores to Quinnsworth, and a number of others to Dunnes. Many of the remaining shops went to Musgraves. As Mr Taggart was to later say, the Williams deal was "very profitably pre sold". Others described it as "one of the sweetest deals of the decade".

According to industry speculation at the time, within six months of buying the H. Williams chain for about £12.75 million, Mr Taggart and his cohorts had recouped £16 million and still had a few stores left to sell.

The Williams buy wasn't Mr Taggart's first foray into the retail sector; in 1982 he had helped set up the Eight to Twelve chain of convenience stores. He was chairman of the group, but sold his 15 per cent stake a few years back. His partner in the Dundrum deal, John Clohessy controls the Eight to Twelve group which now has about 50 stores.

Born the son of a civil servant and a nursing sister, Paschal Taggart, spent his youth in Antrim town. He attended St Mary's CBS in Belfast, and then entered Queen's University where he took what he subsequently described as "a very uninteresting Arts degree".

He was more interested in sport than study, and left college after two years. The problem was the choice of subject rather than academia itself, according to Mr Taggart. He believes a BComm, which didn't then exist, would have suited him better.

Mr Taggart followed his father into the civil service, but left the North for London in the mid 60s. He was assigned to the British Inland Revenue and became a tax inspector. Two years later he was offered a tax management position with the leading accountancy firm Spicer & Pegler. Unlike college, he did keep his head in the books, and qualified as a tax expert.

HE always wanted to return to Ireland, and made the journey in 1974 to take up a post at Griffin Lynch which was later to become Ernst & Whinney. Mr Taggart was replacing Terry Connor, who was being transferred to Cork, but luckily Mr Connor stayed on to show the new man the ropes. The two men became good friends and eventually Mr Connor succeeded Brendan Gilmore in the tax consultancy business that Mr Taggart and Mr Gilmore had set up in the late 1980s.

The interest in sport, which kept him away from college textbooks, has survived into adulthood. When not at work, Mr Taggart is likely to be found on the golf - course or at the dog track. He is also a keen follower of Gaelic football (supporting anybody but Dublin) and to a lesser extent soccer.

Ironically, in recent months Mr Taggart's "work" has also taken him to the dogs as he has assumed the chairmanship of Bord na gCon. So far the State "has got great value for money out of him" according to one good greyhound industry source who said Mr Taggart is devoting a huge amount of time to the non executive position.

He has described the position as "probably the biggest challenge of my life", but when his period in the chair is over it seems certain that, given the kind of man Paschal Taggart is, other larger challenges will come along.