It's become today's cliché, the way Dublin city has changed. Sure I remember the rare auld times when men were men and women wore hats, when there was respect for the cloth and for authority, when people knew their place and were no better than they should be, when a pint of plain was your only man and when you could go the pictures in the Savoy, buy a bag of fish and chips, get your bus fare home and still have change from a sixpence. Ah god be with the days.

There's no time for any of that now. Today's world is efficient, productive, thrusting, tiger-like, high-energy, socially responsible, industrious, multicultural and above all else early rising. When I was a lad living in Dublin's Herbert Street, the offices began to fill gradually from eleven o'clock onwards. There was but an hour or two for lunch before it was time, at around four, to make your way home again. Mind you, a traffic jam back then meant maybe four cars in a line. Today if you want to be in the game at all you need to be at your desk before nine. To accomplish that simple task, depending on where you live, can mean arising very early to get into the city before the real traffic jams begin with the school runs.

It's another cliché that we get all the social ills of America about twenty years after they do. You could argue that that simply proves no one ever pays any attention, so we keep making the same mistakes over and over again, but that's not the point I wanted to make. Back in the eighties someone gave me a thick tome called 'Power Lunching'. Power lunching was all about combining your business stratagems with restaurants, impressing your clients, putting them at their ease prior to closing the deal and learning never to order spaghetti unless you knew how to eat it without looking like a buffoon. It dealt with important issues such as which table in any restaurant was 'the power table', which position at the table was the 'power position' and getting the maitre d' to remember your name in front of your guests.

Towards the end of the book the author suggested that the age of power lunching was coming to an end. People no longer had more than forty minutes for a lunch, the days of lingering over a bottle of wine were long gone and lingering over an Evian on ice whilst finishing your whites-only omelette didn't really cut it. No, the power meal of the future was the Power Breakfast. 'Why breakfasts?' I can hear you ask. Because if you've got into town by seven to beat the traffic and there's no one else at their desks before eight-thirty, then you have the time for breakfast. If you turn that breakfast time into time for developing your business or your career by sharing it with others who can advance your cause, then it becomes a Power Breakfast.

If the idea of a Power Breakfast appeals to you, you don't have to be in Manhattan to have one. Increasingly the new working hours have meant that many city eateries and pubs that would never have countenanced early morning business before, are now open early and are chasing it. One of the pubs that I've always liked has begun to take their morning breakfasts very seriously, and that pub is The Pembroke. Being near Fitzwilliam Square means that it's in the heart of officeland, so in theory at least there'll be plenty of power breakfasters in the neighbourhood and it's on offer from 7.30 in the morning.

I went to have a power breakfast with a friend in the wine business, arriving from Wicklow some time after the 7.30 start, which was fine because you can have breakfast up to 11 o'clock. A full Irish breakfast costs €7.95 and a mini one €5.95, but the menu is very flexible and mix-n-match is possible. Apart from the all the ingredients that you'd expect to find on a breakfast menu like bacon, sausages, toast, eggs cooked in various ways and black and white puddings, you can also have grilled tomatoes, hash browns, mushrooms, kippers, bagels, eggs Benedict and eggs Florentine, cereals, muesli and toasted sandwiches, all of which are under €6, except the kippers.

Between us we managed a full Irish for me, and scrambled eggs and hash browns for Tom. A couple of well-made cappuccinos and some bottled orange juice made up the drinks element. What was on my plate was good, none of it gave me the impression that it had been cooked for hours and had been sitting on a hot-plate. It all tasted entirely freshly cooked. I particularly liked the white pudding, not often a favourite of mine, but here it was soft and nicely spiced, nothing like the hard, processed lump it often can be.

By half-past-ten the bar itself opens so other options come into play. Feeling a little sinful we both decided to try the Marmalade Martini, a cocktail that has been designed for the early morning drinker - hence the marmalade. It came in the classic dry Martini glass, but instead of an olive, at the bottom of the glass there was spoonful of orange marmalade, which imparted an almost imperceptible taste to the otherwise very dry and very good Martini cocktail. Between the coffees, the food and the cocktails, we felt that the day had begun very nicely indeed. I'm beginning to see how a breakfast might in fact set you up rather well for the day, although too many marmalade Martinis might not help your business.

For me at least, a breakfast meeting was as pleasurable as a lunch, cost a great deal less, and more importantly, felt a lot less hurried. With extra coffees and juices our breakfast bill came to just over €20 and it's available from Monday to Friday.