WHO'S MEETING WHO: BACKGROUND:THE 30 or so officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the EU Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) seem to have been blessed with attributes of undertakers - neatly turned-out, unbelievably discreet, and so yearning for anonymity that they have merged into the background.
Only two of the IMF's dozen-strong team have been publicly identified. They are the head of the mission, Ajai Chopra, the deputy director of the IMF's European department, who has been subjected to paparazzi-type treatment - followed as he is by an army of photographers every time he sets his foot outside his hotel on Merrion Street in Dublin.
Ashoka Mody, the other senior IMF official, is a regular visitor to Ireland.
He has been the mission head for the IMF's Article 4 report on Ireland on several occasions. That is the annual assessment of the State's economic standing. He is a banking expert and, indeed, wrote an opinion piece on the Irish banking sector for The Irish Timesin July.
However, none of the other IMF officials has been named, though several banking experts are among them. It is believed that some travelled from Afghanistan, where they were examining a banking crisis involving institutions in that country and in Dubai.
The Government's negotiating team includes the most senior figures in the Department of Finance, the Central Bank, and the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA).
The Irish Timeshas learned that these include Central Bank governor Patrick Honohan; the Financial Regulator Matthew Elderfield; the secretary general of the Department of Finance Kevin Cardiff, and senior officials Ann Nolan, Michael McGrath and Jim O'Brien.
The head of the NTMA, John Corrigan, has also been involved, as have the NTMA's head of banking, Michael Torpey, and the Central Bank's Tony Grimes.
It is understood that, at a series of separate meetings yesterday, the senior officials talked the visiting delegations through the main issues.
The Department of Finance said yesterday that it could not disclose the identities of the officials from the IMF, the ECB and commission, nor the nature of discussions that had taken place.
The European Commission would not name its delegation yesterday. The spokesman for commissioner for economic and monetary affairs Olli Rehn said it comprised about 10 people, and there was no leader of the delegations.
Mr Rehn's spokesman said: "These officials are people who have been working on Irish issues for some time already. They will have prior knowledge of the fiscal record, of the financial situation and of the banking sector. For example, they will make sure that any restructuring of banks is compatible with EU competition laws."
The one official from the commission who is known is Istvan Szekely, a Hungarian, who is director of economic and financial affairs at the commission. He has been a regular visitor to Ireland in recent months and was dubbed the "tall Hungarian" by Labour finance spokeswoman Joan Burton.
Most of the meetings yesterday took place in the Central Bank, though Mr Chopra of the IMF did visit the Department of Foreign Affairs in Merrion Street.
A spokesman for Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan said last night he had not been involved in the process to date, but had been briefed regularly about developments. Klaus Regling, chief executive of the European Financial Stability Facility, said he expected the discussions to last for about 10 days.