'There is nothing wrong with us that we can't fix'

IT WAS a risky punt for the owner of Business & Financemagazine. Ian Hyland had to make a "contribution" to the Clinton Foundation and agree to stage the bash. Then the economics required a sell-out crowd – 575 in this case – to stump up well over €2,500 apiece, then only get confirmation of Bill Clinton's attendance a tight six weeks before the show.

This triggered the arrival of 15 secret service folk to sweep the buildings and mumble into their wrists and the organisation of 575 portions of Atlantic salmon, Connemara lamb and lemon posset, washed down with Chablis Domaine de la Mandeliere 2007 and Chateau Les Roches Gaby 2001 – and the sweet-talking to movers and shakers to put on their bow ties and turn up.

It worked. Loretta Brennan Glucksman was the main honoree, for her philanthropic contribution to Ireland – “we should eliminate the word ‘emigration’ and make it a two-way street”, she said in her speech – but basically, the night was a lovefest for American business in Ireland and a plea for leadership from a plethora of speakers. Lionel Alexander of Hewlett Packard, speaking on behalf of the American Chamber of Commerce here, called for “inspirational leadership”. Bill Clinton said “there is nothing wrong with us that we can’t fix”, and quoted the Yeats line, “Too long a sacrifice makes a stone of the heart” and said if we have to “take the bitter medicine . . . then we must simultaneously” have a strategy “of where there will be an infusion of new investment and hope. You can’t do one without the other . . .that’s what I would say to the politicians. Tell people the truth. Say what has to be done. And then say how we will get out of this”. We’ve got to get our mojo back, he said.

Denis O’Brien called for an end to “the blame game”. Earlier in the lobby, he nodded a greeting at Michael Noonan, noting wryly that he was the politician who had made a Laurel Hardy jibe earlier about the Government – “we just can’t keep throwing rocks at one another”. In his speech, he said that “right now Ireland needs a 3,5 and 10-year plan . . . We must re-invent ourselves. We need a united front across the entire political divide to deal with the extraordinary challenge we face . . . a Tallaght II”.

In the hall, it was obvious that he was speaking to the converted (apart perhaps from his Moriarty tribunal arch-enemy Gerry Healy), even if the native Irish contingent was depleted from similar events in the old days. Friends First was the only Irish bank which threw caution to the winds and took a table, but Richie Boucher, Bank of Ireland chief executive and Gary Kennedy, a director of Anglo Irish, popped up among the guests on AL Goodbody’s stellar list. The firm also reeled in Ryanair’s Michael Cawley, One50’s Philip Lynch and Kyran McLaughlin of Elan and Davy Stockbrokers. Ann Heraty, a former executive director of Anglo Irish was at the William Fry table. Arthur Cox had Colm Barrington. KPMG beat the rivals by taking two tables and got one of their men, Terence O’Rourke, on to the top table.

Goldman Sachs pulled in two Fine Gael heavies – Enda Kenny and Michael Noonan – as well as Aer Lingus chief, Christoph Mueller and TV3 head, David McRedmond, though Gateway captured RTÉ head, Cathal Goan.

Covidien, the medical devices manufacturer, snaffled the most senior Government man present, Batt O’Keeffe – though the company’s president Rick Lytle was at the top table beside Séamus and Marie Heaney and Dick Spring was there too.

Business Finance, which owned the show with 15 tables, brought along Marian Finucane, Tom Arnold, Adi Roche, Harry Crosbie, Bill Cullen and Jackie Lavin and Danuta Gray. There might have been fun at the Independent News Media table which included Gavin O’Reilly, Shane Ross, Ruth Buchanan and Eamon Dunphy. But for Irish ears, a couple of the more interesting guests were hosted by UCD –  property wizard John Gallagher, aka “the smartest man in the room”, who cleared a billion on Jurys Doyle sales at the peak of the boom and his wife Bernie. They shared a table with Neil Jordan and Pat Kenny.

The top table with its honoree, Loretta Brennan-Glucksman and star guest, Bill Clinton, was headed by UCD president, Hugh Brady and Dermot Gallagher, chairman of the university’s governing authority. Others there included Leslie Buckley, Jim O’Hara of Intel, Peter Keegan of Merrill Lynch and Kieran McLoughlin, chief executive of the American-Ireland Fund.