Pat Dineen denies outright that he is one of Cork's merchant princes. The retiring chairman of Bord na Mona certainly speaks in the lilt of the second city and he has made plenty of money in business, yet the tag is not for him.

"My father was a turbine operator in the ESB and my mother worked in the ESB too. We certainly weren't merchant princes, that's for sure," he says. "My interest in business was economic. My parents couldn't afford to send me to university."

But that was long ago. Now aged 61, Mr Dineen has been a fully paid-up member of the commercial elite - in and beyond Cork - for about 30 years. Owner of an insurance business whose 25 per cent stake was said to be worth about £8 million (€10 million) when sold in 1996, he also chaired Bord Gais Eireann E) and Irish Steel before his five-year stint at the peat company.

Mr Dineen, who played cricket for Ireland in the 1960s and 1970s, has a competitive streak suited to merchant life.

He founded Dineen Life & Pensions in 1965, when entrepreneurial activity was scarce, after working with Norwich Union. As the insurance industry consolidated from the 1970s onwards, the business made a series of acquisitions and was ultimately known as Sedgwick Dineen Group. In 1996, the company was bought out by a subsidiary of the US group Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc, although he retained the position of chief executive until March last year.

Urbane, witty, and a dapper dresser who exudes self-confidence, Mr Dineen has a no-nonsense reputation - he refused to accept memos from staff. He has good contacts, communicates well and cites the maxim "never waste a crisis". Quietly spoken, he does not duck hard questions.

In a statement last September, Mr Dineen denied being a depositor in the secretive Ansbacher scheme when he was linked to the controversial private bank. But was there any truth in a report which said his name figured in the confidential study of the affair by Mr Gerry Ryan, an authorised officer appointed by the Tanaiste, Ms Harney?

"My name was on the list," he says, confirming that he appeared before the High Court inspectorate investigating Ansbacher in May. "I never had an offshore bank account, anywhere, ever. I did appear before Justice [Declan] Costello and I repeated the same denial to him."

Mr Dineen says his sole connection with Ansbacher arose because shares in an investment in a trailer park in Arizona were held on his behalf in Guinness & Mahon Cayman Trust, the company which became Ansbacher (Cayman) Ltd. "I never had a bank account with them."

Mr Dineen's co-investors included the Fine Gael TD, the late Mr Hugh Coveney - described as "one of my closest personal friends" - whose involvement in the scheme was outlined in a statement, before his death in 1998, to the Moriarty tribunal. Mr Dineen declines to name the other partners and says he has had no dealings with the tribunal.

"The implication was that I was some sort of a tax cheat, which I am not. I have paid all my taxes to the Revenue Commissioners."

He says he had no knowledge of the other activities of Guinness & Mahon at the time. The money invested in the trailer park was borrowed from AIB in New York. "That was in 1980 and the project went bankrupt in the mid-80s."

Of Bord na Mona - which yesterday reported pre-tax profits of £11.1 million for 1999 on the back of £154.2 million in revenue - Mr Dineen says the company could be floated on the stock exchange in about three years. "It isn't on the table but I suppose anybody in charge of a State company should get it into shape to give the Minister the option to float it."

All divisions in the company are now profitable, he says. This includes the laggard horticultural division, which is believed to have incurred losses of some £15 million in the past 10 years.

But questions remain as to what do with the company's 300,000 hectares throughout the State, including a prominent and valuable building on Baggot Street in central Dublin, which is leased to Esat Digifone. When asked to put a value on the property portfolio, he says: "I would say it would be well in excess of £50 million."

Should the property be sold or developed? "The first thing is to make an assessment of its potential. All the options - whether to hold or sell it - should be looked at. That is something that needs to be considered."

Bord na Mona also owns a number of coal distribution businesses throughout the State. "We would be looking at the options in regard to these," he says.

Of course any decision on the future ownership of Bord na Mona will be for the Government to make. And if the matter comes up for discussion around 2003, Mr Dineen will be long departed from the company. He is acutely aware, however, of the centrality of politics when dealing with semi-State organisations.

"In my view everybody has to work with the politicians of the day no matter what shape or form they're in," he says. When chairman of E Bord Gais from 1984-1989, a certain senior political figure asked for a short-list of three candidates for a high-ranking position at the company. Mr Dineen says he ignored this and never heard anything else about the matter.

Bord Gais in the 1980s was developing its business to exploit the Kinsale natural gas field.

The task Mr Dineen faced at Irish Steel was more challenging - saving it from collapse.

When he joined the company as executive chairman in 1993, it had accumulated losses of £118 million since 1979. It lost another £10 million in the following year and Mr Dineen was appointed by the then Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Ruairi Quinn, to rescue the plant. This long and difficult process involving complex discussions with trade union and political figures. Even the bishops in Cork were involved. No surprise then that Mr Dineen cites a "change the comparative equilibrium of my life" at this time.

The company was ultimately sold to an Indian firm, Ispat, in 1994 but only just. "We had come within eight hours of closure. I had accepted the fact that it was going to happen. It would have been very difficult if we had closed the place down . . . We got the company into profit. We went looking for a buyer and found Ispat."

With high unemployment in the pre-boom early 1990s, tension was high in Cork. Given the size of the city - "they know what you had for breakfast" - Mr Dineen felt under pressure. When asked by a trade unionist whether he felt "they were all in this together", his infamous reply was: "No. We're all in this alone."

Of Ruairi Quinn, who had promised to allow Mr Dineen take whatever course of action he deemed necessary, he says: "He was under pressure. At the end of the day he made the decision. As far as I was concerned, he was a man of his word."

So what's the secret when saving a creaking semi-State with restrictive work practices in an uneconomic business? "It boils down to common sense at the end of the day. It's very easy to do the right thing when you've no options. In Irish Steel I had no options. It was cut the losses - or else."