Senator Shane Ross

“The clearest account of [Ireland's] fall from grace comes from Shane Ross, a stockbroker-turned-business journalist, and Senator with a record of exposing corruption.”
The Economist

“Read this super book. Cry, get mad and get even.”
Irish Times

“There aren’t many better at puncturing the pompous world of Irish banking than Ross.”
Sunday Tribune

“Prose that sizzles on the page.”
Irish Examiner

My new book, ‘The Bankers’ is now in shops (retailing for aprox. €15). It tells the inside story of how we went from boom to bust and attempts to make sense of the banking crisis that will haunt Ireland for years to come.

An exclusive extract appeared in the Sunday Independent in November. Continue reading ‘The Bankers’

DID you ever surrender your savings or pension fund to the tender mercies of Goodbody stockbrokers? Or, for that matter, to any stockbroker?

Goodbody is owned lock, stock and barrel by the mighty, but deeply troubled AIB.
Continue reading ‘Goodbody Takes a Bath in AIB’

SHOULD small business take to the streets? As public service unions gear up to damage the economy, small business — the backbone of Ireland — is being bled dry by the banks.

Credit is dead. Healthy outfits are being driven to the wall by the bucketful. Public servants have trade unions to bellyache for them. Small businesses have the seats of their pants, brass neck and hot sweat. Their oxygen is credit. But the oxygen ran out on September 30, 2008.
Continue reading ‘SFA No Small-Firm Saviour’

AS I arrive at RTE’s hospitality room for the Frontline programme, there are only two people present. Pat Kenny offers the usual polite greeting while there is a freeze from the other man in the room. His face, or the small part of it that the world ever sees, looks familiar.

Pat’s companion bears a bushy beard. I recognise it. It has appeared in this column more than any other beard on God’s earth.

I blink and grasp the hand of Siptu boss Jack O’Connor, muttering gratefully that “we have never met”.
Continue reading ‘CIE Could Constipate an Actuary’

PATRICK Honohan has made a dream start as governor of the Central Bank. He is already gloriously offside with the Government, his patrons. Brownie points for Patrick.

Brian Cowen must be spitting blood at the governor’s call for an inquiry into what went wrong in the banks. Brian Lenihan’s protegee had poked the Taoiseach in the eye. Initially, Cowen politely rubbished the governor’s idea but it has gained legs galore as every day passes.

Patrick has begun a bit of a bandwagon.

It is probably slightly embarrassing for Patrick that all the opposition parties have joined his crusade. His demand for an inquiry has been politicised.
Continue reading ‘Let Patrick Lead the Probe’

BRIAN Lenihan was born to be Taoiseach. No, nothing to do with his pedigree. Lineage once gave you a leg up in Irish politics, but no more.

Of course, the finance minister is blessed with tribal bonds unequalled in Fianna Fail. Of course, his father Brian senior and grandfather Paddy were party icons. Of course, his aunt Mary O’Rourke is a priceless ally in Leinster House. And of course, his brother, Conor, is a minister of state.

Young Brian inherited a political birthright. His path to the Dail’s backbenches was a doddle.

After that, he was dependent on his wits; wits which soon revealed him as the brightest Lenihan ever to pass through the Kildare Street gates.
Continue reading ‘Taoiseach in all but name’

BRIAN Goggin bade farewell to the marble halls of the Bank of Ireland 18 months early in February last.

As Bank of Ireland’s managing director he was the first of the big bankers to depart this year after a series of disastrous media outings. His response in an RTE interview that his pay package would be reduced to “less than €2m this year” rocked the nation and sealed his fate. It was an absolutely extraordinary statement from a man who had drawn €4m during 2007. Continue reading ‘We say Goodbye… He finally left the stable — but not without his straw’

CHRISTMAS is a perfect time for an amnesty. This year let us swallow hard and give a fool’s pardon to the sinners with beards, namely the trade union guys who tried to wreck the economy.
Continue reading ‘Paddy the Bearded Banker’

WHAT a pity there was no strike last Thursday. Some of us were longing for it.

If the trades union leaders had called a strike they would have suffered bloody noses.

Support for industrial disruption was shrinking by the hour. Our bearded comrades had read the runes hopelessly wrong. Far from being militant, their own members were ready to accept further pain. The bearded ones were in a corner. They had led the troops into a cul de sac. Another day off meant another day’s loss of pay. There was little appetite among good ordinary public service workers for that. For once the Government had the public behind it.

Continue reading ‘Three Cheers for FF Dissidents’

DID you know that Leinster House was haunted? No, not just by the ghosts of de Valera, Michael Collins and Countess Markievicz.

They are mere run-of-the-mill spirits, civil war heroes or heroines, names regularly invoked by TDs to inflame earthly political controversies.

Last week, a more visible class of ghost floated into the corridors of power.

Continue reading ‘The ghosts of bankers past’