It's been a busy 1998 so far lots of turnover and financial markets taking up quite a bit of newsprint. The Irish headlines are dominated in part by Asian Flu stories and the prospects for the IEP/stg exchange rate as the punt (we were never allowed to call it that in my days at the Central Bank it was always the Irish Pound or, more accurately, the Pound Irish) sinks ever lower.

It's bizarre that an economy which is steaming ahead at Warp Factor 9 should also be contending with a currency that is doing an imitation of the dance of the dying swan. Opinion is, as always, divided on the wisdom of letting the currency fall to its central ERM rate. In the blue corner is the "let it fall and let's lock in a level of competitiveness within the EMU" argument. In the red corner is the "inflationary impact of a de facto devaluation" group.

It's only a matter of time before the word "speculator" starts being bandied around again. Although, given that the Government's current exchange rate policy seems to be a one-way bet on the premise that sterling will (eventually) fall, one can't help wondering exactly what the Government labels as speculation.

Anyway it's all enough to make various clients take opposing views which is good news for us and keeps us busy. Every January we spend a Saturday closeted away in a hotel where we discuss our plans for the coming year. This year Kilkea Castle was the location for our deliberations. Obviously, the single currency looms large on the agenda and we spent a considerable amount of time talking about the shape of our business in the future. (And you thought all we did was drink champagne in the Harbourmaster!)

It's a long day (and usually generates a lot of impassioned talk), but when the business part has been concluded we sit down to dinner and the discussion becomes somewhat more lighthearted. It all sounds a little bit American and buddy-buddy, but in fact it's nice to get together out of the office.

I'm not sure that anybody who had booked in to the Castle for a quiet, romantic week away from it all would have been too pleased to see a gang of people descending on the bar as though they'd just trekked through the desert and finally found an oasis. So apologies to anyone who thought they were getting away from it all, only to find that it had all followed them.

One of the great topics of conversation revolved around the nightmare phone calls we've been involved in over the previous year. Although we pride ourselves on getting on well with both domestic and overseas clients, there are always times when the conversation flags or when you say something that started off quite well in your mind, but has turned to utter gibberish by the time it leaves your lips.

One of my colleagues took it upon himself to keep a record of the most memorable quotes or conversations and permission was granted to repeat them here. However, in the cool light of day I decided that it might be better to preserve the mystique of great bond sales lines of our time. And to say that it was one of the team who has since left the company who had a thrilling conversation with a German client on how to iron shirts.

We also had a competition to predict the level of the sterling/Irish exchange rate by the end of 1997. I think it adequately illustrates the panoply of views when you discover that the range was something like .9500 to 106.00. So if any of us were mad, impetuous speculators we wouldn't exactly be falling over ourselves making money right now. We had a variety of other forecasts too the range on the sterling/Irish was about the average for the rest of them.

So it was back to the office on Monday and another attempt to make money in the real markets.

Asia continues to cause headaches with Indonesia becoming the latest to terrify investors. Its budget at the beginning of January assumed an exchange rate to the US dollar of 4,000 which was patently unsustainable. In fact, the currency went as low as 10,000 last Friday before recovering to 8,500. The rupiah has fallen around 75 per cent since last July and, according to reports, the locals are now stocking up on food supplies.

Indonesia and the IMF are still talking, but with the government-owned aircraft company defaulting on loans, the situation becomes grimmer by the day. The once high-flying investment house, Peregrine, went into liquidation due to its $400 million loans to Indonesia.

To try and reassure investors, Samsung Life has had its employees walking up and down the streets of Korea shouting out upbeat slogans. To be honest, I can't think of what an upbeat slogan in Korea could possibly be right now, unless it's "I have a bundle of US dollars".

Gold is down again too and reports have it that people in Korea are selling their jewellery with the aim of increasing the reserves, and getting some cash.

Each time the West has been jittery about Asia, the markets have managed to rally significantly after initial falls. But you can't help wondering for how long the US can take Asian worries in its stride. And just because Irish companies don't have huge Pacific Rim exposure doesn't mean that we won't suffer as a result. The workers in Seagate can vouch for that.

And finally I received a couple of calls over the past weeks from people who have been reading this column and would like to reassure you that it has the interests of the IFSC tenants at heart. Mr Dave Cullen faxed me to say that, although the shops, bars and Belgian chocolate factories weren't immediately on the agenda, there will be more seating around the Dock for the summer months. And Joe Byrne, manager of the Spar shop, called to say that it stocks ladies' tights. A boon for anyone who finds that they've ripped a pair just as they were about to go to a meeting.

So the power of the press works. Now all we need is to plant stories about wonderful gains in Japanese equities . . .

Sheila O'Flanagan is a fixed-income specialist at NCB stockbrokers.