Around the time of the Irish presidency in the second half of 1996, it started to become clear that the momentum to EMU was unstable. Ruairi Quinn was the man in the hot seat this time and his most difficult task was the negotiation of the stability pact, the rules under which budgets will be monitored inside monetary union.

Like all the steps along the way, it was not easy and the omens before the Dublin summit were not good, as high level meetings between Jacques Chirac and Helmut Kohl failed to sort things out. Germany's demand for fiscal rectitude - led at the time by the unshakeable Theo Waigel - met with French preference for a looser approach and there was a risk of failure for John Bruton's rainbow government. In the end the deal was done after a long night's haggling in Dublin Castle, with Ruairi Quinn calling in Luxemburg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Junker to help broker the compromise, which sets in place the instrument to fine fiscally errant states, although not as severely as Germany originally wished. Everyone went away happy and Jacques Chirac's "bravo to the Irish presidency" showed how fraught political talks can turn so quickly to bonhomie after a deal is struck.