"It's a market we intend to be very aggressive in, as aggressive as we need to be, " Group CEO, Adrian Hegarty, told the Sunday Tribune as they announced record results in Dublin this week.

"We have the full support of our parent company and they have identified this as an area of growth. The rules of engagement in that market have yet to be clarified, but in the event of a breakup of the VHI, or something else happening, we will be pursuing any opportunity, " he said.

When asked how much funds would be made available, Mr Hegarty said that between 500m and 600m, but that the company could stretch to a billion, if required.

"The value we would expect is between 500m and 600m. That wouldn't scare our shareholders. We could probably go to a billion if we needed to. At the moment though there is nowhere we can buy into however, " he said.

The company recently hit the headlines when it emerged they allowed a known fraudster to sit on one of their company boards for close to two years.

The news followed a complaint from Cork businessman, John O'Mahony, who believed he lost out on 500,000 because of a fraudulent Friends First policy he bought into from the director involved, Stephen Donnelly.

"We intend to tell our side of the story in court, not in a media environment, " said Hegarty.

He said the company had no regrets over how they handled their media strategy throughout the controversy and in time they intend bringing some balance to the story.

"It was a bit of bad publicity and we are moving on. We wouldn't have handled it any differently" he said.

"The other aggrieved party in this case has been able to take advantage of the media in relation to this story. We released a statement at the time and we have a further story to tell about it but we cannot do that in a media environment. We will have our day in court, " he said.

The group made an overall profit of 35.3m for 2006 and have targeted commercial mortgages as the growth area for their company in 2007.

"I've had some media briefings in the past on results where it has been very difficult. We really are delighted with these, " he concluded.