Hamell's book of wisdom well worth a read

Call it obsession, if you like, but Mr Philip Hamell definitely has a "thing" about the euro changeover handbook. He talks about it constantly and carries it everywhere with him. But it's not his security blanket: as far as he is concerned, its ours.

The chairman of the Euro Changeover Board of Ireland has made around 10 million items of information on the currency change available to the population of the State since he took on the job in 1998, yet the handbook, posted to every household in October, is the one of which he is most proud.

"Even if they don't read it, people have a sense of comfort that it is there. To some extent, it's like a dictionary. At least they know if they don't read it, they can, if they want to," he insists.

Managing the dual mandates of overseeing the changeover and providing information for the public about it may not have been a 24-hours-a-day job, he says, but it has been all-pervasive. "It's everywhere you go. It's not easy to switch off. When I go shopping on a Saturday morning, I get great fun from talking to people, but it's hard to escape from it. It's a project that was long in time and, secondly, it's very broad because it runs across everybody, and it's deep, going into a lot of nooks and crannies. It's like a large cube. Everything is large."

In the period leading up to the introduction of the currency in January 1999, there was a great deal of excitement and pressure, he says, and that picked up again in the autumn.

"It has been a tremendous challenge and a tremendous experience, and all of our staff have found that. It has made us realise things we would not have done. I am tremendously proud of my staff [he has 20]. They take no nonsense from me. They are great fun, they work hard and play hard. One thing that the changeover has taught us is the incredible importance of people. Money is about reaching people and explaining to people. Money is like Heineken: it's a changeover that reaches the parts others don't reach."

The work of the changeover board falls into six sections: legislation; cash production and distribution (the responsibility of the Central Bank); public sector preparation; private sector, including retail, preparation (undertaken by Forfβs); consumer matters; and public information.

The board has had a major input into the five Acts that cover the currency change, in coordinating the approach of Government departments and informing the public through leaflets, waves of advertising campaigns, and consultative work with many public and voluntary organisations, especially those catering for low-awareness and special needs categories.

Leaflets explaining the changeover were sent to every household every year since 1998, culminating in - yes, the handbook. Since April, half-a-million information items a month have been landing in hallways, offices and factories, backed up by an intensive television, radio, press and outdoor advertising campaign. And the website recorded 1.3 million hits in October.

"While we aimed to reach the whole population, we wanted a disproportionate viewership or listenship or readership among the categories of lower awareness - older people, people based in the home, people on low incomes or likely to be at risk of low awareness. Advertisers are generally aiming at the young, high-spend, high-income, technically aware people. In a sense, we were turning the advertising pyramid on its head," he says with some satisfaction.

Having mentioned older people, he is adamant in his belief that not all older people will have difficulty with the currency.

"If you are old, you have adapted to many changes and you're used to change," he says. "We're determined they won't be looked upon as 'just because you're old, you can't cope'. Lots of older people were taught mental arithmetic and will be well able to cope."

For its work the board has a budget of £14 million (€18 million) in the current year and Mr Hamell estimates that it has spent around £19.5 million on the information aspect of its work alone.

A career civil servant in the Department of Finance, Mr Hamell wasn't particularly fazed by the January 1st, 2002, deadline to which they had to work. After all, the Department has annual deadlines for Estimates and the Budget. "So far we have responded well to deadlines but the big deadline is January 1st and then you'll know whether we are really good. January 1st is a deadline in one sense; on the other hand it's the beginning of a process."

And he predicts with some confidence: "By January 12th, the bulk of transactions will be in euros. People will find themselves offering euros and receiving euros."

Things at the Hatch Street headquarters in Dublin are not as frantic as they had feared, he says, due mainly to three factors: the retail training done by Forfβs, the handbook and the euro converter, which has now gone to every household - the Republic is the only State apart from Luxembourg to have provided a converter.

Mr Hamell says the hardest thing for him as chairman of the changeover board has been the long-tailed legislative work and personal publicity - although he has done a pretty good job of avoiding very much publicity for the three years.

"We are civil servants, used to being in the background, our work being unseen. Here, we're in a quite different environment."

On the upside, he says he's had the chance to do things that "as a middle-ranking civil servant you wouldn't expect yourself to do" - like pinning a euro badge on the Taoiseach's lapel, meeting Bill Clinton and representing the board abroad.

And "the power of the media: People say they see me on the telly. If you're on a radio show, it's striking how many people will say they heard me. My friends' children call me Mr Euro."

Mr Hamell was born in Dublin and educated at Belvedere and UCD where, influenced by his father Michael who studied both languages, he did Greek and Latin. He read for but did not complete his thesis at the University of London on Tacitus.

"It's a funny thing to have been studying a silent man when you do a handbook that has gone out to every house in the country," he muses.

"Single but not despairing", he lives in Drumcondra with his father but used to travel in the US and in Europe regularly before 1998. He is a considerable wine buff.

The Changeover Board will wind down after February 9th, when the dual-currency period ends. "We will tidy up our accounts and administration, write a report as we have done every year and then will go back to our civil service work."

And he himself? "Resume social life with my family and friends, go for long walks, do some travel, read, read and read, listen to music. . . I am 48, so it's time to have a mid-life crisis. I have been postponing a mid-life crisis. I feel I need to grow more, so I have an awful lot to do after this but it will be great to have free time to do it," he says with a grin.

And last minute advice? "Read your handbook (again!), do what you normally do on January 1st and be nice, be patient, be friendly. Euro as you go; it will happen."