Independent TCD senator Shane Ross
Today I celebrate 25 years off the demon drink by listening to Miriam Meets on RTE radio. My wonderful 90-year-old mother took the programme by storm, telling Miriam O’Callaghan her version of our life story and pedigree. She was the star of a show which matches relations and friends in a threesome with Miriam.
With glorious insensitivity to my lifetime’s crusade against bankers, she revealed that banker’s blood runs through my veins. Her father worked for Lloyds Bank in the 1930s.
TWO mighty Irish companies rose above the radar last week.
The cream of the private sector and the jewel in the semi-state crown were both hit by natural disasters in recent months. Ryanair responded to being smothered by an Icelandic volcano; the ESB, top of the privatisation hit list, was facing fierce flak for its handling of last year’s floods in Cork.
On Tuesday while Ryanair was revealing how the volcano hit its profits, the ESB’s reaction to the flooding catastrophe was being scrutinised by Deputy Sean Fleming’s Oireachtas Committee on the Environment.
Continue reading ‘ESB Boss Fails O’Leary Test’
NOW that a stake has been driven through Seanie’s heart, what will be his legacy? How will he rank in the pantheon of great Irish bankers?
Well, he was unique. No Irish banker has ever behaved more recklessly than Seanie Fitz. First he put Anglo Irish Bank, next himself, and finally the nation, at risk of financial oblivion.
Some legacy.
Frank Daly, the chairman of Nama, is hardly the first guy you would invite to a wife-swapping orgy or to a drunken dinner party.
Continue reading ‘Daly Trapped in Bankers’ Sting’
BOOKIES Paddy Power is offering interesting odds for the next President of Ireland and the first directly elected Lord Mayor of Dublin.
Businessman and independent senator Feargal Quinn is moving up in the betting for the mayoralty. Today he is fourth favourite at 8/1. Paddy Power tells me that there has been steady money for Feargal in recent weeks.
The supermarket king protests a lack of interest, but let us hope that someone twists his arm, as the first executive Lord Mayor of Dublin will need plenty of business expertise. He will have a big budget, awesome responsibility and discretionary spending powers never before enjoyed by a mayor.
No-one has a better business pedigree than Feargal. He took the most difficult of all business decisions, selling his family supermarket chain at the top of the market. His record makes him ideally equipped to promote the prosperity of the people of Dublin. Besides, he carries no party political baggage.
Continue reading ‘Presidents of Waste Flying High’
PIGS were flying high over Dublin Airport last Wednesday. Porkies were being peddled by the bucketful.
Pilots on the piggy planes were looking down from on high, fleeing from the white elephant being paraded miles below, where a public relations coup was being plotted.
The Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) was doing what it does best: pulling a quick stroke to mask the disastrous financial future facing the State’s airports.
WHICH finance minister said: “I was completely against it. The last thing you need is a State-owned bank, because it will end up with every lame-duck, politically attractive proposition being brought to it for finance.
“The more the State owns of it, the less it will be possible to refuse. That’s a complete horror story in my book.”
Charlie McCreevy? Albert Reynolds? Brian Lenihan?
Continue reading ‘Alan’s Little Bank of Horrors’
I spoke in the Seanad this week on the Statements on the Regling and Watson Banking Reports. If these reports tell us anything, it is that the financial collapse was a home grown problem. The crisis may have been triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers but it was created by the property bubble in Ireland and reckless fiscal extravagance.
Below are some excerpts from my speech in the Seanad.
Continue reading ‘Bankers & Department of Finance Must be Held Accountable’
TWO unlikely Good Samaritans gave shelter to Fianna Fail in their hour of need on Friday morning.
Friday was the day that the banks took a breather. Instead , the nation’s most powerful political tribe took a battering. The Irish Times opinion poll gave the State’s largest party the worst result ever. Reeling at the results, the soldiers of destiny assembled in force to meet two of their executioners.
Continue reading ‘Cold Comfort from Good Samaritans’
