Chairman Lord Levene tells Una McCaffrey that the firms 'old British connections' have helped it to gain a disproportionate Irish position.

Here's a question. What do Padraig Harrington's arms, the dancers' legs in Riverdance (all 160 of them), Croke Park and the Dublin Port Tunnel have in common? Clue: it's not that they are all national icons.

The correct answer lies in a commonality of financial arrangements, with all five choosing to take their insurance out with none other than the British institution, Lloyd's of London.

And they are not the only ones. Other prominent national treasures dealing with Lloyd's include Aer Lingus, the national rugby team, CIÉ, the ESB's power stations, Dublin airport and Dublin Port.

It all adds up to a hefty exposure of roughly €300 million in annual premiums, giving Lloyd's a direct insurance market share of roughly 8 per cent and an annual reinsurance exposure of about €50 million. This marks limited growth on the 5 per cent recorded a couple of years ago, but Lloyd's is not uncomfortable with the progress.

Equally, however, the company is not complacent about its position. It is perhaps for this reason that the firm's eminent chairman, Lord Levene of Portsoken (Peter to his pals), was in town this week to shake a few hands and pose for a few pictures.

Lord Levene, a charming and amiable businessman who has served in a Tory government and as lord mayor of London, is entering his second term of office as chairman of Lloyd's.

He admits he has been "remiss" in not coming to the Republic before now, given we qualify as his firm's fifth largest European market.

There is a reason for this "disproportionate" Irish position within the company's portfolio and Lord Levene is very honest about what it is: colonialism.

He doesn't use the "c" word himself, but he acknowledges the benefit of "old British connections". The company's biggest global market is the US, while the third-largest is Canada. Australia and Hong Kong also have a "disproportionate" presence on the firm's books.

It makes sense. Lloyd's has been around for three centuries, offering insurance at a time when other companies didn't yet understand the concept.

He believes there is a reassurance in the Lloyd's name that can only come with a history of this magnitude. Clients are comforted, he says, by the knowledge that Lloyd's has been around for a long time. And despite a few blips along the way, it has experience in translating its liabilities into profits.

In the Republic, the corollary of the heritage is that Lloyd's operates in a very mature market. It is no coincidence that most of the firm's Irish projects are State-related, with Lloyd's favouring the kind of "chunky" projects that often only come with a government link. It is also no coincidence that this type of liability tends to very, very rarely result in large payouts.

The company also has a long-standing link to Ireland through its use of "names" for funding. This traditionally saw wealthy individuals back the firm's liabilities through the straightforward supply of capital. The system worked well for a couple of centuries but the company now judges it too archaic for its needs and takes in 85 per cent of its capital from institutions.

It didn't help that the names incurred heavy personal losses in the late 1980s and early 1990s and delivered lots of bad publicity to Lloyd's in the process.

No new names have been admitted for some time, although some remain, including a very small group of Irish investors. In the past, these included Lord Henry Mountcharles and boxing promoter Barney Eastwood.

Tellingly, Lord Levene himself declined to become a name 30-odd years ago, never seeing the rationale behind the potentially unlimited liability the position carried. It was foresight of the type which has carried the peer though positions as chief executive of the Canary Wharf Group and chief of defence procurement at the UK Ministry of Defence.

While in the Republic this week he packed a lot in, including a weekend in Kerry, a courtesy call to the Taoiseach and an address to the Institute of Directors (IoD). He also presided over a dinner for Irish "captains of industry" at the UK ambassador's residence in Glencairn in leafy south Dublin.

The IoD speech gave the life peer the chance to consider one of his favourite subjects: the role of the non-executive director.

Lord Levene has a bit of a reputation in this regard, having resigned from the board of J Sainsbury in 2004 over a £3.6 million (€5.3 million) payment to the supermarket firm's former chairman.

He points out that non-executives can no longer be drawn from the chairman's pool of school buddies, nor can they expect to flit in for board meetings without first immersing themselves in the business.

In a way, he argues, it is a thankless task, with non-executives getting none of the credit when things are going well and all of the criticism when they go badly.

The answer to the dilemma, he suggests, is to offer better pay to board members. That way, companies will get more of their time and the burden of responsibility will sit more efficiently. "Gifted amateurs" are not the answer, according to Lord Levene.

A fan of the Irish economy in general, Lord Levene describes its progress as "extraordinary". He recalls his last visit here in the run-up to the first euro changeover in 1999.

At the time, the governor of the Central Bank was worrying about how to bring the Republic's interest rates down to levels seen in Germany, as was the requirement of the changeover. In the end, the move down was rapid - 1 per cent per month - and "nothing happened". Not every country would have been able to absorb the same shock, Lord Levene suggests.

He is also an admirer of Irish politicians, most notably Charlie McCreevy and John Bruton. In their respective EU executive capacities both have been assisting Lloyd's and other companies in a campaign to change the rules for "alien" insurers in the US. McCreevy in particular is "very, very switched on", he says.

Before enlisting the help of EU authorities, Lloyd's had been helped by the UK government. Lord Levene says it suddenly "dawned" on him that this very venerable British institution involved in a tussle with US authorities was getting more support from two Irishmen than from its own government.

Just as Lloyd's needs its Irish politicians, it seems the Republic has decided it needs Lloyd's, as well.