He bought a truck for IR�600 and borrowed IR�100 for a mechanical shovel and used it to dig his fortune out of the ground through his cement company.

Now a billionaire, Quinn bought the Belfry golf course for 400m recently and paid 150m for Ireland's second-biggest health insurance provider Bupa. He also owns the Slieve Russell Hotel in Cavan, and other hotels and pubs including Q-Bar on O'Connell Bridge, Dublin.

Quinn entered the insurance market in 1996 when he established the Quinn Direct group. Earning a reputation of giving good value premiums to motorists, the company now has over 550,000 customers and has recently expanded into the UK market.

But the Quinn Direct success story did not happen overnight. At the end of its first financial year, it filed accounts with the Companies Office displaying a pre-tax loss of IR�2.1m.

In 1997, it made a pre-tax profit of IR�306,000 and the company seemed to be on the road towards success until 2000 when it filed accounts displaying a pre-tax loss of 14.9m.

In 2001, the company made a pretax profit of 25m and its profits have grown exponentially to culminate in pre-tax profits of 231.7m in 2005.

The motor insurance industry has become one of the most lucrative in Ireland in recent years, with car insurance firms increasing their profits by 26% in 2005, according to a report by the Irish Financial Regulatory Authority.

The last available annual study of the insurance business in Ireland reveals that motor insurers pocketed 88m more in profits in 2005 than they did in the previous year.