Irish Life is the State's fifth-largest public company and its largest life insurance company, with some 300,000 customers.

Just days after his appointment as managing director of Irish Life in March of this year, Mr David Went, in an interview with The Irish Times, said he was going to concentrate on the group's Irish retail and corporate operations.

His objective, he said, was to make Irish Life a significant third player in the financial services market, after AIB and Bank of Ireland.

The merger talks currently underway with Irish Permanent would lead to just such a development.

Profits at Irish Life last year were almost £113 million, an increase of 21 per cent over the previous year. Booming equity markets and strong profit growth at its part-owned businesses contributed to the strong profit growth. The group's core life assurance business recorded a lower 6.8 per cent increase in profits, to £77.3 million, having been hit by a four-month strike by Irish field sales staff.

It has a stockmarket capitalisation of just over £1.6 billion and employs some 1,500 people in Ireland.

Within months of Mr Went's appointment the group had deals with TSB Bank and Dunnes Stores which created an expanded distribution network and product range. However, in June the group found itself facing an allegation that it had failed to act against staff who had been involved in "churning", or encouraging customers to cash in old policies and buy new ones.

In September Irish Life announced operating profits of £88.5 million for the first six month of the year, an increase of 40 per cent.

Earlier this month Mr Went appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business, where he called for independent statutory regulation of the insurance industry. He said the public had lost faith in the current system of self-regulation.