WITH MICHAEL Somers heading for the exit door at the National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), a game of musical chairs is set to begin there.John Corrigan, who runs the National Pension Reserve Fund (NPRF), will take Somers’s (right) highly-paid post, so who will fill Corrigan’s shoes? The smart money is on Eileen Fitzpatrick, a former head of AIB Investment Managers who joined the NTMA as a director in 2006 to oversee the NPRF’s alternative assets strategy.

ON TUESDAY, PR firm Murray Consultants threw a recession- defying party in the Sky Suite of the SAS Radisson in Dublin to launch its consumer spin-off.

MCsquared is an attempt by the agency to throw off the shackles of its image as a stuffy, corporate- focused firm in a bid to snaffle some sexy consumer accounts.

Its strapline is “Power to the Brand”. A revolutionary choice.

SOME GOOD news on Wednesday for Eircom, Vodafone, UPC and Magnet who were selected by the Department of Finance to compete for contracts to provide fixed voice and Voice Over IP telecoms services to up to 5,000 Civil Service and public bodies.

The contracts could be worth about €100 million a year.

One notable absentee from the list was British operator BT, whose focus here is supposed to be big business and government.