Almost a decade before Edmund Farrell was born, his father became secretary of the ailing Irish Temperance Permanent Benefit Building Society. It had assets of £3,000. When the son took over as managing director in 1975, the renamed Irish Permanent had surpassed all of its rivals, and its assets had swelled to £141 million.

But when he initially chose to study medicine at University College Dublin, Edmund Farrell Jnr had no intention of following his father into what many had come to see as the family business. He qualified as a doctor and had begun his year as an intern when he suffered a strange illness that affected his sense of balance.

Worried that the disease would undermine him as a doctor, he quit medicine and asked his father for a start. He once said that it was the only thing he could think of at the time.

Three years later, in 1975, Edmund Farrell Snr died. His last request to the board of the building society he had brought to great heights was that it should appoint his son managing director. The board members, most of whom, along with many employees of the society, were somewhat in awe of Mr Farrell, acquiesced.

Despite his inexperience, and an amount of resentment from some staff who felt the society had become the personal plaything of the Farrell family, the 28-year-old did well at the helm. Assets continued to grow, and the Irish Permanent opened more and more offices across the country.

It became clear that apart from business acumen, he had inherited other aspects of his father's approach. He too was willing to ignore the wishes of some shareholders and the authorities alike.

In 1978 - and again in 1982 - he broke away from the Irish Building Societies Association cartel on interest rates. In 1979, he rejected a Government directive to favour low-income families for home loans.

In 1979, he paid the property developer Mr Patrick Gallagher more than £7.5 million for a new Irish Permanent headquarters on St Stephen's Green. One month before the transaction, Mr Gallagher had paid £6.5 million for the building.

Remuneration for top-level managers and board members under Mr Farrell was regarded as generous. In the 1980s his remuneration was rumoured to be £150,000 a year, and by the time of his downfall, in 1993, his official salary was £250,000.

Once convinced of the need for the Irish Permanent to become a public company, he head-hunted Mr Roy Douglas from AIB, and several others.

Just over a year later, the Irish Permanent issued a statement that Mr Farrell had been suspended from executive office while transactions concerning his home were investigated.

On April 19th, 1993, he was removed as chairman.