There are many myths about Jack Welch and at least one of them involves Ireland. When General Electric (GE), the company he ran for 20 years, was buying parts of GPA, the struggling Irish aircraft leasing company, Dr Tony Ryan, the GPA chairman is said to have likened the takeover to a rape.

"Well what do you expect Tony, you've been walking around naked for six months," was Mr Welch's supposed reply.

Eight years later, it is clear his involvement in Ireland's biggest corporate disaster did not leave a lasting impression. The GPA debacle does not even warrant a mention in Jack: What I've learned leading a great company and great people, his memoir of his time at the head of the world's most valuable and admired business.

"It did not make it into the book because there was no lesson there. A guy got in some difficulties, we came along and used it," he explains. GE was doing something in the region of 200 deals a year at the time and the GPA rescue was just one of them.

The only son of an Irish- American railroad conductor, Mr Welch came to Ireland in the 1970s when GE's semiconductor arm had a plant in Dundalk. The Louth operation was a legacy, but a later decision to build an industrial diamond plant in Shannon was his own. GE's other significant investment in Ireland was the £600 million (€659million) purchase of the Woodchester financial service group in 1997.

Since he first visited Dundalk, Mr Welch has tracked the change in Ireland's economic fortunes. "We came originally for the tax holiday and the cheap labour. Ireland has changed now and has a highly educated and entrepreneurial workforce," he said.

"Now you are going to have to compete with the likes of China, India and Hungary. I find that good. Ireland is moving up the food chain."

The important question, and one that Mr Welch says he can't answer, is how well the Irish companies that sprung up in the boom climate will stand the test of time. "But I get the sense of a young entrepreneurial culture," he says.

Mr Welch's arrival in Dublin to promote his book coincided with a mini-riot last Wednesday night at the Burlington Hotel by "anti-globalisation" protesters outside a summit on public- private partnership. GE epitomises globalisation and Mr Welch is credited with pioneering the concept. The protesters were at the wrong hotel - Mr Welch stayed at the Merrion - but their activities may explain the security staff outside his suite yesterday.

"Globalisation gets the have-nots closer to the haves. As I sit in Ireland, I see it as one of the major beneficiaries," he says.

The opponents of globalisation are a funny crowd of bedfellows. Some, such as the trade unions, have genuine concerns; others, such as the environmental lobby, are just plain wrong, according to Mr Welch.

"Every time you go to a new country, you bring new environmental standards. When GE goes to Hungary, it brings US standards," he argues.

To appreciate the benefits of globalisation you have to see past the abuses that occur within the trading system it fosters, such as the exploitation of child labour, he says. Such abuses happen anyway and are not the fault of the internationalisation of commerce.

"Globalisation has raised the standard of living in many countries. It has not solved poverty but that was not its goal. That is the goal of some other organisations. Look at the countries that are held out as losers as a consequence of globalisation. Were these countries successful 10 years ago? No. Globalisation has done its part to improve the lot of Mexicans, Hungarians, Indians and Irish. It is the best thing I have seen, though I am not saying it is perfect."

The power attributed to global companies by critics of global commerce is mythical, he argues.

He points to the recent decision by the EU to block GE's takeover of Honeywell and the US government's antitrust case against Microsoft as examples of how large companies are subject to the rule of law.

Mr Welch concedes his examples are drawn from the developed world but is adamant: "There is not a place we can go where the law of the land is not superior to GE. We have the choice to withdraw. Would that not be free expression?

"I have always felt the power argument to be massively overstated." He claims that the only place in which he ever had any power was GE. "I can't think of a place outside that box where I could tell people what to do."

The tragic events of September 11th underlined the strength of the GE model, believes Mr Welch. The $400 billion company continues to espouse a multi-company, multinational approach at a time when the fashion is for smaller, more focused businesses.

"Planes using our engines, insured by us, hit buildings insured by us, but our network coped and we reported an 11 per cent increase in earnings," he says. The attacks were beyond "my wildest imagining", according to Mr Welch, and it is clear that, like many others, he has done some soul-searching as a result. The previous attack on the World Trade Centre, the US embassies in East Africa and the USS Cole should all have served as warnings that such a thing was possible, he believes. "But when the Cole was sunk, it didn't change the way we did what we did," he said.

The impact on the US economy of the catastrophe is hard to call. "I can't define for you the American psyche and how they will respond," he says. There are some reasons for optimism. The US government is well positioned to fight recession with a budget surplus, or at least a balanced budget, and low interest rates.

Mr Welch is full of praise for the way GE and his successor, Mr Jeff Immelt, handled the crisis. He likens him to New York's mayor, Mr Rudi Giuliani. "He got out on the street and just told the truth. If his facts were wrong, he corrected them," he says.

In a similar fashion, Mr Immelt went ahead with the company's scheduled analyst briefings in the aftermath. "He told them what he knew," says Mr Welch. GE instinctively knew what to do in the crisis - donating $10 million to victims' families within hours of the attacks - and that, in many ways, is Mr Welch's legacy.

Thousands of words have been written about how Mr Welch built GE from a $8 billion company into one worth $400 billion. In his own words, he "was part of a group of people that created a modern corporation that was different - that does so many things the right way".

One of his many maxims was that GE must be the best, or at least second-best, at whatever it does or else get out of the market. The same goes for his latest project. Why else would the world's best-known chief executive CEO be travelling Europe to promote his book? You only have to talks to him and it becomes obvious. He wants the book to be the best-selling book by a chief executive ever. It has spent four weeks on the New York Times best-seller list and is on the curriculum for Harvard and Yale's business school.

If the book is not an Irish bestseller, he will be disappointed. After all, the book is the story of an "Irish mother, her son and tough love".