A soft-top Mercedes, a pad in Dalkey and a thriving business before the age of 30 is many a person's dream. Colin Hayes and his wife Jenny have them all, plus a son, Jacob, who's almost two.

Their home on fashionable Sorrento Road was originally a coach house for one of the large houses on Sorrento Terrace. The Edge lives across the road and Bono and Lisa Stansfield both have homes nearby.

Meeting Jenny was a turning point for Colin, in a year when he had broken his back in a skiing accident and business was suffering as a result.

"We met in the Shelbourne on Christmas Eve and went to Florida the next day. I had been in traction for six months and all I wanted was a holiday. I said to myself 'I'm going to marry her' and three months later, I did.

"I was living here then and when Jenny moved in, my minimalist bachelor pad was turned into a Bosnian war zone. I met her father for the first time at our engagement party and I was embarrassed I hadn't asked for his daughter's hand. Only later, I realised he was getting rid of her mess!"

Mobile phones were Colin's golden egg. Like many of today's top movers and shakers, he left school early and travelled the world, ending up on Bondi Beach for his 21st birthday.

The following year, he came back to Ireland and opened his first Cellular Connections shop in Ballsbridge.

"I was always buying gadgets. I used to buy mobile phones in London and sell them here to pay for my trip. When I opened the shop in Ballsbridge, I was the first to sell mobile phones for a fiver in this country. We had queues down the street - it was unbelievable," he says.

His latest venture, Bellstream, was developed to allow international calls to be made cheaply over the Internet.

When 300 new Mercedes taxis are delivered in October, e-taxi - probably Colin's best idea yet - will be launched. With e-taxi, people will be able to call a cab by text messaging.

Colin's company will track to within metres where the caller is and connect their phone to the driver of the nearest taxi. Passengers will also be able to top up their phone cards in the taxi.

Not bad for a young lad with no formal technology training - a self-styled "ideas man" who started out at the age of 15, selling out-of-date fruit juice to wine makers at Dun Laoghaire's harbour market.

"I didn't like school and didn't even do my Inter. My parents were fabulous, put no pressure at all on me to study or go to college," says Colin.

The Sorrento Road house needed refurbishment when Colin bought it, two years after opening his first mobile phone shop. He gutted the inside, knocked two garages into one and installed a huge mezzanine bedroom and bathroom upstairs. Tall windows run to roof height at the front, linking the ground and first floors.

A high fence hides the terracotta-painted house from passers-by at the front. Jacob's toy tractors and trucks are parked on the gravel beside Colin's Mercedes.

In warm summer months, the family practically live on the broad south-facing terrace at the front of the house. The bleached wooden table is the family dining table for a good part of the year, says Colin.

Inside, the open-plan living area has comfortable sofas and bookshelves, with a serious cook's kitchen at the back. An open staircase leads up to two bedrooms and a bathroom. With Jacob on the way, the couple divided the original large bedroom into two.

They are planning to extend out into the banked rear garden, creating a split-level house with wonderful views of Killiney Bay from the new sittingroom windows. They are also hoping to build a wine cellar for Colin's burgeoning collection of good wine.

A very keen cook who makes his own pizzas and shops frequently at Dublin's Asia Market, a new state-of-the-art kitchen will be a priority for Colin. "I'm addicted to amazon.com and buy thousands of cookbooks.

"I love living in Dalkey. On Sunday nights my favourite occupation is to go down to The Laurel Tree restaurant in the village and cook myself a steak there after closing."

Colin recently joined forces with a group of specialists to incubate new businesses.

One of the group is Nude and Skooter whizzkid David Quirke, another returned emigrant with whom Colin formed an instant rapport when introduced in a Dalkey pub.

With indigenous talent like these putting down roots, the future of technology in Ireland seems secure. "I've always been able to find things to do, because I've a low boredom threshold. I'm always doing new things," Colin says.