JUST this week a book has been published that will doubtless serve as a kind of Debrett's for boomtime Ireland if not a successor to Maureen Cairnduff's Who's Who In Ireland. Where better to check out someone's financial pedigree and expansion prospects than in Ire- land's Entrepreneurial Elite, a new book by business journalist, Richard Curran and Dr Declan Hayes, now based in Tokyo. The book contains detailed interviews (business details, that is) with David McKenna, managing director of Marlborough International; Martin Naughton, founder of Glen Dimplex; Denis Brosnan of the Kerry Group and Geoff Read who created Ballygowan Mineral Water.
If you didn't make the cut, you may as well go straight to business purgatory without passing "Go" or collecting £200. Mind you, the volume is a little on the slim side, which would suggest that the elite is particularly, well, elite on these shores. Guests who arrived at the AIB Bank Centre on Monday night to catch a first glimpse of the book included David McKenna himself; Adrian Kelly, finance director of Ocean, a new telecommunications business; Chris Kane of Bord Failte; adviser to the Taoiseach, Jackie Gallagher; John McGoldrick, managing director of Enterprise Oil, and John Kelly, head of business banking in AIB.