The Tony O'Reilly-led bid for Eircom's fixed-line business has focused attention on the extent of the 65-year-old businessman's operations at home and abroad. The first Irish billionaire -- although O'Reilly only achieves that status when his assets are combined with those of his wife -- has a network of business interests which spans the globe.

But nowhere does O'Reilly have such a concentration of interests as in Ireland. And in no area of Irish business is there a position to match O'Reilly's almost complete domination of the newspaper market -- a position that Independent News & Media has used aggressively to roll out its new media and telecoms ambitions in the past two years.

The old media has been bankrolling the new, something explicitly acknowledged by the company in recent annual reports. O'Reilly's move into new media was most plainly signalled by the renaming of the company from Independent Newspapers to Independent News & Media.

O'Reilly controls Independent through his 27 per cent shareholding in the company, worth an estimated e350 million. Personally he holds 70 million shares, dwarfing the holdings of any of his fellow board members.

In any case, the board is staffed with O'Reilly acolytes and loyalists, along with a few members of the British establishment such as former chancellor Kenneth Clarke and the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, Paddy Ashdown.

His three sons -- Cameron, Gavin and Tony junior -- are also on the board. Cameron and Gavin are also on the executive committee.

In fact, rather than listing the newspapers that O'Reilly controls, it would almost be easier to list those he doesn't. The Independent group owns just over 67 per cent of Irish daily newspapers, excluding the largely-English produced `Oirish' tabloids, the Mirror and the Sun. It owns the Irish Independent, the Evening Herald and controls the Star through a 50 per cent holding.

The Indo's dominance in the Sunday market is even more pronounced. It owns or controls almost 87 per cent of the Irish newspapers sold on a Sunday (excluding The Sunday Times Irish edition), mainly through the two behemoths of the market, the Sunday Independent and the Sunday World.

Then there is the Sunday Tribune. The Indo owns 29.9 per cent of the Baggot Street title but effectively controls the paper through loans which have kept it afloat -- or prevented it from being taken over, depending on how one looks at it. The Tribune protests its editorial independence but the fact is that O'Reilly has the paper in his corporate grip.

Independent News & Media also owns 11 local newspapers, including such giants of the provincial press as the Kerryman and the Wexford People. It is known to have designs to increase its influence in this area.

O'Reilly's media empire is not, of course, restricted to Ireland. His acquisition of a full stake in the Independent in London in 1998 gave him complete control of the British broadsheet and the attendant clout and respectability that he had craved.

His knighthood is evidence enough that his desire to be accepted as a top drawer international press baron (he was dismissed as second rate by Conrad Black and Kerry Packer a few years earlier) has not dissipated with age.

Independent also controls the delivery systems relied on by most of the country's publications. The company owns Newspread, the largest distribution and wholesaler of publications, which distributes over 2,000 titles. It also owns the Independent Directory.

The extent of O'Reilly's move into new media was signalled by the group's acquisition of the internet service provider (ISP) Internet Ireland last year, now run as Unison. Unison is supplied with copy from the Independent titles and also provides access to over 40 local papers. Unison offers e-mail, internet shopping and web access through television. Through Unison, the company also runs retail sites such as loadza.com.

Independent also owns iTouch, a new media and telephony group which operates in Ireland and in four other countries where the Indo has a strong presence: Britain, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. In Ireland, iTouch runs lucrative premium rate telephone lines such as Weatherdial and provides content services for mobile phones. It is developing Wap technology to use the Indo's great bank of content on mobile phones.

The links between the media business and the telephony infrastructure and facilities which are needed to deliver them is encapsulated by Chorus, which is 50 per cent owned by the Independent. Chorus, which was formerly Irish Multichannel, remains the second largest provider of cable TV in Ireland. However, using its growing network, Chorus is offering its own phone service in targeted areas, something it intends to roll out further as its digital network is built.

Independent also owns 51 per cent of Switchcom, Ireland's largest pre-paid telephone call card business.

In Ireland, O'Reilly controls -- along with brother-in-law Peter Goulandris -- Waterford Wedgwood, the crystal and luxury goods manufacturer. He also controls Arcon, the zinc mining operation, and has limited interests in oil and gas exploration. He took Fitzwilton, his industrial holding company with interests in Britain and Ireland, private in 1999, buying out the shareholders and taking the firm off the stock market.

Through Independent News & Media, O'Reilly is now a real player on the world media stage. Aside from the London Independent, he controls almost 50 local papers in the Greater London and Kent area, as well as magazines -- including Rugby News -- and a number of trade journals.

In Australia, the Indo owns Australian Provincial Newspapers (APN), the largest publisher of local papers. It was bought using the O'Reilly family trust to circumvent Australian rules on foreign media ownership (O'Reilly's first wife is Australian and his children had Australian citizenship). The rules have since been relaxed and the Indo has increased its shareholding, enriching the family trust.

The company also owns the second largest radio operator and the largest outdoor advertising company and has interests in magazines, specialist printing and in internet and mobile telephony.

In New Zealand, the Indo owns Wilson and Horton, publishers of the New Zealand Herald and the country's largest newspaper company. O'Reilly also controls the largest radio operator and the largest commercial printer. Independent also has interests in magazines, printing and internet and mobile data.

In South Africa, the Indo owns the largest newspaper group, Metropolitan Newspapers, and also operates substantial magazine, radio and internet interests. In Portugal, the company holds a minority stake in the largest newspaper publisher.

Despite the impressive catalogue of O'Reilly's worldwide empire, it is Ireland that remains the heart of the group's power and wealth. Here, the figures of O'Reilly's media dominance are unparalleled in the western world, where most countries have laws which restrict media dominance by one player.

Media people are often accused -- often with some justification -- of being overly obsessed with their own industry. However, an interim report by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment two years ago pointed to a "clear recognition that there comes a point at which concentrations of media power in the hands of a small number can injure the marketplace of ideas".

The Independent has repeatedly -- and not without some credibility -- disputed the level of its dominant position, pointing to the numbers of imported English papers which, benefiting from massive economies of scale, are sold cheaply on the Irish market.

Nevertheless, even allowing for these figures, it can hardly be disputed that Independent newspapers hold a position of unchallengable strength in the Irish market.

In addition, given that comment and news on Irish affairs is scarce or non-existent in the non-Irish newspapers sold here, the Indo's influence in the marketplace of ideas is even greater than it is in the conventional market.

This becomes important when something like the sale of the country's telecommunications infrastructure to the newspaper proprietor is the great issue of the day.