Both Crowley, who took over from the high-profile Howard Kilroy after Bank of Ireland’s planned merger with Alliance & Leicester fell apart, and Soden saw an opportunity for the bank to assert itself when some still see it as a relic of British rule in the republic.Older Irish people continue to describe Bank of Ireland as a “protestant” bank. And to add another twist, he was also the nominal boss of Fred Goodwin, who then ran Clydesdale Bank for NAB and now runs The Royal Bank of Scotland, which many see as Bank of Ireland’s most likely suitor.Soden was headhunted from NAB more than a year ago by the Bank of Ireland’s Governor, Lawrence Crowley. Additionally, when he was at NAB, Soden was in effect the boss of John Windeler, the combative American who runs Alliance & Leicester, which almost merged with Bank of Ireland two years ago. Cicutti has been stalking Abbey National for more than a year and has had to admit defeat in the face of Bank of Ireland’s move.

From there he was rapidly promoted, becoming number two behind Frank Cicutti.And here comes the irony. He was just 43.However, four years getting his golf handicap down to just four was not stimulating enough for Soden, and he was tempted back into banking by National Australia Bank (NAB), where he was put in charge of its European wholesale and treasury operations. There, in the 1970s, he was spotted as a potential star of the future and left Ireland for a successful and highly lucrative career that took him to the US and Canada for Citicorp and then on to Hoare Govett, the City stockbroker bought by Security Pacific, the now-defunct Californian bank By 1990 he had made enough money to retire. Not only has he proposed a merger with Abbey National that has been rejected by the ailing British mortgage bank and is seen by most City analysts as a “non-starter”, but he has tried unsuccessfully to promote both an operational and an actual merger with Bank of Ireland’s main rival, Allied Irish Banks (AIB).The naivety of both forays betrays the fact that the independently wealthy 55-year-old Dubliner is a relative newcomer not only to the politically divisive Irish business scene but also to the blood-spattered UK banking arena, despite amassing a wealth of experience in finance.He started out working for a small Irish investment company before joining Citicorp’s merchant bank in Cork. Just seven months after taking the helm at Ireland’s second-largest bank, has presiding over two failed attempts to promote transforming deals raised a question mark over his job and the bank’s future?Soden has certainly made his mark since becoming chief executive in March. Was he collecting his thoughts for the presentation he is planning to make to the City this week to get it to back a £15bn merger with Abbey National?Or was he wondering whether he has over-reached himself.

You might have expected the chief executive of an ambitious Irish bank – and one trying to take over a larger British rival – to be entertaining his investment bankers, or buttering up a leading shareholder in his target company, or bending the ear of a politician to see how the land lay for the cost cutting that would follow the deal.
But the Bank of Ireland boss was sitting on his own, nursing a glass of red wine, prodding his tiramisu and staring into the distance. On Wednesday night Michael Soden was spotted dining out in an Italian restaurant in the centre of Dublin. But it’s also important for users themselves to seek out a better deal because many are paying more than they need out of laziness.. Roaming charges – the amount custo-mers have to pay for mobile calls made and received abroad – are being particularly scrutinised.All of this should be good news for consumers, many of whom are paying a lot of money for the privilege of having a mobile. In addition, Oftel is conducting a number of studies to determine the savings that UK telecoms consumers could be missing out on. The Competition Commission is looking at cross-network char- ging by a number of networks after it received a barrage of complaints from mobile users.

“There’s little tariff innovation and not enough price competition, which we’re calling on regulators to address.”However, price structures are likely to improve over the next couple of years as a result of pressure from government organisations. “There’s a fundamental problem with the market,” says Mr Tynan. They tie you into an annual contract but their line rental is low – partly because they do not offer free talktime minutes – and call charges are quite cheap.However, the secondary sellers face an uphill struggle trying to attract customers who are still dazzled by the main networks. For example, many people are not aware that companies like One.Tel, used by many for cheaper landline calls, offer a cheap mobile service for low users. “But we don’t think it’s innovative.” He adds that independent, secondary sellers such as Virgin, Telecom Plus and Phones 4U tend to come out as better value than the big four.