Instead, the Glaswegian wrapped himself around his share of telegraph poles during his 35-year stint with the former British Telecom. He started as an engineer "going up poles and down holes" to fix faults, and describes his long-ago move to the office job as "a big mistake".

That's a joke. McLaughlin also laughs at the suggestion that the Irish job might be viewed within BT as a poisoned chalice. "You can look at it and say 'my God, we paid a lot of cash for that business', but everybody was doing it at the time."

And at least there is plenty to fix.

Just when valuations in the telecoms industry were peaking in 2000, BT paid a now inconceivable 2.8bn for Denis O'Brien's Esat Telecom. The deal included fast-growing mobile business Digifone and a fixed-line operation carving out a decent niche reselling Eircom's voice and internet products.

By the time the company rebranded last year as BT Ireland, everything had changed. Digifone had been sold for a bargain basement price to ease BT's debt. McLaughlin's predecessor, Bill Murphy, had been sent to Ireland to "cut it in half or close it down".

Murphy chose the former. By the time McLaughlin received the baton last year, BT Ireland was emerging from a three-year programme of painful cost and job cuts. McLaughlin says he doesn't waste time looking at past problems.

There's enough going on to keep him occupied.

For starters, McLaughlin has to cure BT Ireland's bipolar disorder. The company's corporate division, whose bluechip clients include AIB, Bank of Ireland O2 and 3, has been booming. But the consumer experience has been depressing.

BT Ireland grew revenue by 29% last year to 372m, with corporate revenue up 35% over that period. The corporate business "sustains the company", McLaughlin says. "It is a very successful business and we're very good at it."

On the retail side, BT has a 12% market share of the telephone and internet market, placing it second behind Eircom.

Catching up is not easy, and the company has pinned its hopes on gaining access to Eircom exchanges through the hot potato of local loop unbundling (LLU).

LLU means Eircom opening up exchanges to allow competitors to install equipment to access the copper wires between exchanges and customers' homes and offer internet, telephone and other services directly. Nowhere near enough exchanges have been unbundled, McLaughlin says, to justify investment by BT in providing customers with the kind of services it offers in Britain and Northern Ireland.

Eircom's policy of doing everything possible to defy the regulator and stymie competition may not be admirable from a consumer point of view, but it has been efficient. McLaughlin suggests any change of ownership might boost competition. "The position I'm in at the moment, almost anything would be good because the status quo is producing no progress."

BT doesn't seem to have been killing itself to find other ways to make headway in the consumer market, but McLaughlin defends its record. He says unbundling is the only viable option.

Wireless broadband technology is not at a stage where BT feels it represents a "convincing alternative", he says.

The upshot is that BT's consumer division is stalled. But McLaughlin says there is no way BT will decide Ireland no longer presents an opportunity. This is not "a financial binary issue", he says, because the telco doesn't need the consumer business to work to justify its presence in Ireland.

McLaughlin is not above multinational muscle-flexing, though. An LLU stalemate will affect group investment decisions, he warns.

BT set aside 100m for capital expenditure over three years on its consumer division. He says there's nothing to spend it on.

"We've probably invested not even a tenth of that. I'm going to come out of the year not spending my capital budget, which is not good. It means I'll have to rebid for the capital. There will come a point where credibility is an issue".

Away from the LLU hot potato, the telco has found it easy enough to source homes for its parent's millions. BT spent 15m last year to buy Cara, one of the oldest IT companies in the state.

"Cara has exceeded our business case in both revenue and profit, " McLaughlin says.

The Cara deal followed the 25m purchase of Northern Irish BIC Systems.

Both companies specialise in installing IT networks and managing services for corporates. McLaughlin believes he is now well placed to win juicy public sector contracts.

BT has thrown its hat into the ring to run a digital radio contract for the emergency services, and for the Department of Communications' upcoming digital television pilot project. McLaughlin plans a crack at unseating Eircom as the provider of the government's IT network, a contract that is up for tender again this summer.

The company posted its first quarterly profit in the Republic over the final three months of 2004, but it dropped 26m at an operating level and shelled out 26.7m in interest payments.

McLaughlin says 2005 turnover grew by another 20% and that the company is now Ebitda (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) positive. The bottom line is still red.

McLaughlin's BT career previously took him to France and Germany, which had obvious attractions for the skiing enthusiast, but he says he wished he'd come to Ireland earlier. "It's got a real buzz."

Of the difficulties involved in building a profitable business in the market, McLaughlin claims it's "always better to have a job where there is lots to do". And as with the car project, it brings its own satisfactions. "At the end of the day you've built something that didn't exist before."

The aspiration, of course, is that BT will be more cost-efficient than the Cobra.

THE MAN & HIS COMPANY DANNY MCLAUGHLIN Age: 51 Family: Married, with two children Background: Joined British Telecom as an apprentice engineer in 1971. Rose through the ranks to head the company's engineering "eld force before moving into sales. McLaughlin has since worked with a number of BT's subsidiaries, including both its French and German businesses and its energy division. He was appointed chief executive of BT Ireland, Scotland and Wales in 2005. When not on the road overseeing those territories for BT, he lives with his family in Glasgow.

BT IRELAND

Financial Information: Turnover of 300m in 2004 on which it made a pre-tax loss of 52.6m, including interest charges of 23.7m.

The company says 2005 earnings will come in about 20% ahead of the previous year's numbers when it reports its results in May.