MEXICO'S disgraced former president Mr Carlos Salinas de Gortari is currently living happily in Dublin, according to a Reuters report.
The agency quoted a respected Mexican intellectual, Mr Jorge Castaneda, who said he visited Mr Salinas in Ireland last month.
Mr Castaneda, said he met Mr Salinas in a Dublin restaurant, Kilroy's, on May 6th, along with both men's wives.
However, there is no restaurant in the capital by that name. Staff at Kilroy's sandwich bar, off College Green, said yesterday they knew nothing about the meeting.
The ex president's whereabouts have been a mystery since he fled the country on a private plane to the United States in March 1995 shortly after police arrested his brother Raul on charges of illicit enrichment and conspiracy to murder.
Local news reports have placed Mr Salinas in Cuba, on a yacht in the Caribbean and in Canada at different times during the past year.
Mr Castaneda said he had agreed with Mr Salinas not to disclose details of their conversation. "My impression is that he is a man in very good spirits, good health, good humour, well settled in the city . . . he didn't say what he was doing," Mr Castaneda told a Mexican radio station.
Mr Salinas won worldwide acclaim with his free market reforms in Mexico but fell into disgrace when the economy crashed.