Council boss gets €238k despite ethics breach

The council chief executive rapped by a political standards watchdog for contravening ethics legislation has walked away with a gross €238,364 lump sum on his retirement.

 Last November, the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) was highly critical of Longford County Council’s Tim Caffrey over his failure to fully disclose his ownership in a €259,000 property his local authority was helping a charity to purchase.

The purchase of the home at The Mill, Clondra, Co Longford by the Muirosa Foundation did not proceed, however.

In its ruling, Sipo found Mr Caffrey had ‘not acted in good faith’ had been ‘negligent to a high degree’ and that it was a serious matter.

Mr Caffrey had declared ownership of the house in the council’s annual declaration of interests but Sipo found he breached ethics legislation when failing to notify, in writing, his interest in the property to the then chairman of Longford County Council, Larry Bannon.

In response to the report, a statement issued on Mr Caffrey’s behalf said he utterly rejected the conclusion he did not act in good faith and that Sipo was not entitled to make such a conclusion.

The statement said Mr Caffrey was very disappointed with the findings of the report and he had always acted in good faith in a 45-year career in public office.

The Department of the Environment confirmed yesterday that following Mr Caffrey’s retirement last month, Mr Caffrey was entitled to receive a gross pension lump sum of €238,364 which includes a special severance gratuity of €49,883.

He will receive a gross annual pension of €62,827.

Chief executive of Isme, Mark Fielding said: “The eye-watering quarter of a million and some loose change being ‘awarded’ to public sector employees at retirement shows again the absolute weakness in a system that allows politicians to ‘flash the cash’ — our cash — to public servants.”

Council chairman Cllr Gerry Warnock (SocDem) said Mr Caffrey’s lapse in not fully disclosing his interest in the house “was an administrative error”.

Gordan Deegan

Photos minute: Best of friends

 Whats this one doing in this line up??

How to calm and reshape an anxious mind

Medical matters: Dr Harry Barry’s book contains much to put our busy brains to rest

The amygdala is a tiny structure buried deep in the limbic part of our brains. It fires the body’s stress system and gets it to flood the body with adrenaline.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space . . . in that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom”. – Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Memory.

It’s not often you finish reading a book and come away with a sense of having read something groundbreaking. I’ve just had that experience with Dr Harry Barry’s new book, Flagging Anxiety and Panic : how to reshape your anxious mind and brain (Liberties Press).

Anxiety disorder is one of the most common mental health disorders; it is estimated that one in nine Irish people will experience a primary anxiety disorder during their lifetime.

While significant strides have been made in understanding depression in recent years, there was a sense of a missing link when it came to anxiety. And, in particular, there was a need to build a bridge between the clinical aspects of the condition and what exactly was going on in our anxious brains at a neuroscientific level.

Enter a part of the brain called the amygdala. It’s a tiny structure buried deep in the limbic part of our brains. In evolutionary terms, it’s been there forever and its job was to make you sense and to respond rapidly to danger. It fires the body’s stress system and gets it to flood the body with adrenaline.

Which is fine if you meet a grizzly bear on a hike in the Canadian Rockies, but a bit over the top if you are feeling anxious in a social situation.

Barry has come up with a brilliant description of the amygdala’s unruly side. “It is also the gunslinger of the stress system – it shoots from the hip, often without thinking and does not really worry about the consequences. The gunslinger is not particularly smart, has a long memory, does not respond to regular talk therapies and regularly disregards instructions from head office, that is our logical brain.”

Meanwhile, the worry side of anxiety has been traced to the left prefrontal cortex of the brain while a tendency to catastrophise can be tracked to the right prefrontal cortex.

Neural pathways

These prefrontal cortices and the amygdala are all linked by neural pathways which also stretch to the adrenal glands from where our"fight or flight" hormones emerge.

Over time, the overactivity of these brain parts leads to actual functional change. Called neuroplasticity, this is the ability of the brain to adapt and change key pathways between its different parts.

So let’s say we have pathways formed in our past that are driving our anxiety. By using the cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and mindfulness techniques outlined in the book, we can literally alter our brains using the same neuroplasticity, in reverse, to block lifelong anxiety and panic.

Physical symptoms

This requires a reasonable amount of work on our part. You need to do some homework outside of one-to- one therapy sessions but the reward is to put the gunslinging amygdala back in its box. This reduces the physical symptoms of panic and anxiety. Similarly, reshaping pathways involving the left and right prefrontal cortices means we train our brains to deal with the worrying and catastrophising.

One of the reasons the book works so well is the extensive use of actual cases. As you read these you can see yourself sitting in front of the therapist, both looking in and participating in the interaction. You will see how patient and therapist work together to solve the specific anxiety in each case.

A general practitioner for almost 30 years with a long-standing interest in mental health, Barry saw a need to improve our understanding of the neuroscience of illnesses  such as depression, anxiety and addiction. He is now part of an international group of researchers and thought leaders, looking to create new diagnostic tools in mental health.

If you or someone close to you suffers with any form of clinical anxiety then this book is a must read.

Muiris Houston

Abuse survivors unhappy at fund’s operation

Almost two complaints a week were made against Caranua last year by survivors of institutional child abuse.

Caranua was established by the Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Act 2012 to oversee the use of the cash contributions of up to €110m, pledged by the religious congregations, to support the needs of survivors of institutional child abuse.

The fund is to provide survivors with their health, educational and housing needs.

Figures released under Freedom of Information show that, between April 2015 and February of this year, 75 formal complaints were made by survivors about the service offered by Caranua — almost two every week. The vast majority relate to “disrespectful/poor treatment”. However, others include “failure to protect confidentiality”, “discriminatory treatment” and “failure to meet timeline”.

Tom Cronin of Irish Survivors of Institutional Abuse International said he believed the figures to be “the tip of the iceberg”.

“ A lot of survivors are vulnerable and timid and don’t bother to complain. If Caranua is working, then why are so many survivors unhappy with it? We are just ignored. It’s a situation where we have to beg for our own money — money that we are entitled to. It’s disgraceful what they are doing,” he said.

Mr Cronin said the system was “completely ad hoc” and that while surivivors could get money for certain home renovations, finance for essential white goods like fridges, washing machines, and cookers was denied.

He also queried Caranua’s refusal to release money to survivors who wanted finance to help pay for their own burials.

“Many survivors are worse off now than they were when they received the redress awards. In their twilight years, survivors are being denied what was awarded to them by bureacracy,” he said.

Mr Cronin said he believed the State was hoping survivors would die off so the fund could be closed and re-directed into other areas.

A spokesperson for Caranua denied the level of complaints was high and said that it was always working to make the application process more survivor centred.

“Ideally, we would have no complaints. However, of the over 5,180 part one applications we have received up to February, that figure [75 complaints] represents about 1.5%.

“Obviously, we want that figure down to 0%. In general, we are always trying to iron out our processess to make them as person centred as possible. We talk to a lot of survivors and groups and we are always trying to adapt to best suit the needs of the people we are supporting,” she said.

The spokesperson acknowledged that goods and money for burial was not permitted under the current guidelines but said that, due to survivors’ concerns on this issue, it was “currently under review”.

She also denied that there was any intention to close the fund before all the money has been spent.

“We don’t intend to have any money left over as we can see that the need is there for the money to be spent in the survivor population and that is our intention. As of today, we have spent around €45m in different supports out of the €110m so we are going through it rapidly,” she said.

Caranua will hold an information meeting in Cork on April 23 and Galway on May 14, and is encouraging as many potential applicants as possible to attend.

Conall ò Fátharta

PS: There will be more on this very important matter soon and more proof to expose the actions of Mary Higgins

Barry Clifford

A German’s view of subdued Ireland exposes raw nerve

Pointing out our failure to learn from painful past continues to enjoy an enduring appeal

German chancellor Angela Merkel: Indicated “contempt” for such people following the Anglo Irish Bank tapes revelations. Photograph: EPA

Once upon a time, today’s news was tomorrow’s fish-wrap. But, no more. Almost three years after “Conned, A German View Of Ireland" made its first appearance in The Irish Times, the article has just made its fourth comeback on the Irish Times. Why?

The story goes back to July 2013, when I spotted the original article, “Abgezockt”, on the prominent page three slot of the Munich-based Süddeutsche Zeitung. The article, written by the newspaper’s London correspondent Christian Zaschke, was a striking read.

Like most German media outlets, the Süddeutsche has no full-time correspondent in Ireland, meaning that coverage of the island is sporadic and often superficial.

But this article was different. It was clear Zaschke had spent time travelling Ireland, talking to people and listening to what they said – and asking them about what they were not saying. Unlike most German media coverage of Ireland – often superficial and cliche-ridden – this got under our skin.

The article was well-observed, beautifully written and well-timed. Days earlier, the infamous Anglo Irish Bank tapes had leaked, exposing the full contempt of its bankers for the Irish taxpayers and – in the infamous Deutschland Über Alles segment – for Germany. When I asked Chancellor Angela Merkel about the tapes, after another late-night emergency summit in Brussels, she said she had “contempt” for such people.

Zaschke wanted to know why Irish contempt for people who had screwed them over in the past – over oil and fish reserves – didn’t stop us allowing them do it again

Bled dry

Aisling Murphy, a psychologist and member of a Dalkey protest group against off-shore oil drilling, told the newspaper: “We are a land that lies still while we are bled dry.”

But why? Ms Murphy suggested it originating in the Irish fear of making a fuss.

“On top of that is something that, in psychological terms, you call ‘acquired helplessness’,” she said. Ireland was the sovereign equivalent of a battered wife, she suggested, that “quietly puts up with it”.

For Zaschke at the time, the article turned on his head the image he – and many of his German readers – had of the “fighting Irish”: fearless rebels who delight in challenging authority.

It was a daring article for a German newspaper to run in 2013, given the popular crisis narrative in some Irish quarters at the time that the Germans, and not the Irish, were primarily to blame for the country’s misery.

I got permission to run the article, translated it quickly, and it appeared on our pages on July 6th, 2013, under the headline: “Conned – A German View of Ireland.”

It shot to the top of the most-read articles, with the first online comment: “Why can’t we get critical analysis like that from our own journalists?”

“Conned” went viral and enjoyed a second coming in October-November of 2013. By year-end, “Conned” was the most-clicked article on Irishtimes.com. But things did not end there. “Conned” rose from the dead a third time in August 2015 – again pushed by social media. And yet again in the last seven days.

The largest spike in readers comes from Facebook links from posting such as “Call for a revolution in Ireland”. Another reason is the virtuous circle of online journalism, where most-read articles get a bounce for featuring on the most-read list. And perhaps the headline triggers a “what do the Germans think of us?” itch that many cannot resist scratching.

Lasting message

David Cochrane, Irish Times social media editor, refers to the article as “evergreen content” – something with a lasting message that remains relevant despite the passage of time.

That’s a view shared by Zaschke. He thinks the article touched a nerve not because of the various political sell-outs he described – of oil, gas and fish reserves – and more because of the red thread linking them.

“I think people see an elite in Ireland that doesn’t care for the country, an elite people have tolerated for too long and which now has to be held to account,” he said. “When people contact me after reading the article now, they are baffled to hear the story is almost three years old. I guess they think its message is still valid.”

Derek Scally

Don’t blame the Constitution, minister Kelly

WHO owns the Constitution? The answer may be self-evident to

some, but successive politicians seem to be confused about the matter. The latest to be faced with this dilemma is the acting minister for the Environment, Alan Kelly.

He told a conference last month that he would like to do a lot more about the housing crisis but is prevented from doing so by the Constitution. “I was repeatedly blocked from making provision for what I believe is the common good by the strength by which property rights are protected under Article 43 of the Constitution,” he said.

That position has been disputed by, among others, the master of the High Court, Edward Honohan. He says there is ample provision for the common good to be taken into account. “The Constitution in effect provides that the State may expropriate private property if the Oireachtas decides that to do so is for the ‘common good’,” he wrote in an open letter to Kelly.

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What is at issue is the competing rights between individuals and the common good, and Honohan makes the point that there are circumstances where the common good must hold sway. He provided the example of road-building which often involves the compulsory purchase of land.

If Kelly’s was a one-off plaintive cry of “don’t hit me with the Constitution in my arms” it might have some credibility. But it is not.

Time and again, whenever successive governments have been faced with making a decision between vested interests and the common good they have come down on the side of the former by waving around the Constitution. And not just when property is at issue.

A perfect example of the constitutional defence used by governments was in the area of drink driving.

In 1998, the newly-formed Road Safety Authority (RSA) proposed the “urgent” introduction of random breath testing for drink driving. Younger readers may find it difficult to believe, but back then gardaí had to harbour a “reasonable suspicion” that a driver was under the influence before resorting to the breathalyser. Numerous prosecutions fell on the basis that the suspicion that a driver was under the influence was not “reasonable”, or at least was not shown to be “reasonable”.

Then along came the RSA with an eminently sensible proposal. Let the gardaí breathalyse whomever they wanted on the basis that anybody driving should be observing the law. Who’s afraid of random breath testing?

Well, publicans for one. They had their business to consider. How could anybody drink in peace while fretting the prospect that they could be asked to blow into the bag by a random garda.

Despite the urgency of the RSA proposal, the government of the day refused to play ball. On what basis? Well, there could well be constitutional problems with such a law. Everybody was too polite to point to the elephant at the cabinet table — the almost unrivalled political influence of the publican.

And so it went on for nearly eight years. During that period any time the prospect of random testing was aired, the government of the day waved the Constitution as reason why it couldn’t be contemplated. Between 1998 and 2006 there were 3,181 fatalities on the roads. How many of them might have lived if a more stringent regime of drink driving was in place?

Then in 2006, the constitutional issue disappeared. What had suddenly made the problem go away? For one, the country was awakened to the carnage by high-profile campaigns from the RSA and in particular its chairman, Gay Byrne. This period also coincided with a waning of the political power of the publican.

So once the public mood changed, and power began draining from a vested interest, the road was cleared of the ‘constitutional problems’. Random breath testing was made law and no more was heard about it.

The Constitution has also been continually invoked to prevent interference in the property market. Back in 1974, the Liam Cosgrave-led cabinet of the day was presented with the Kenny report into the price of building land. One of the report’s main findings was that land speculation was hindering the cost of housing.

Once land is rezoned from agriculture to housing, its value increases by a multiple, effectively turning muck into gold overnight. All of this windfall accrues to the landowner, despite rezoning being effected ostensibly for the common good. The canny landowner makes huge fortunes on the back of the common good.

Kenny proposed changing the system to statutorily value rezoned land as its agricultural price plus 25%. On the face of it this would go a small way to rebalancing power between vested interests and the common good.

Reportedly, the Kenny document was passed around the cabinet table. Somebody pointed out that there could be a constitutional problem over property rights. Nobody had the stomach to take on the vested interests of land owners and developers. Consequently, the Constitution was waved as exhibit A to protect the politicians from making difficult decisions that would discommode their friends and benefactors.

There was little further discussion and the report was shelved, where it lay until an all-party Oireachtas committee on the Constitution examined the issue and reported in 2004.

The committee found that in light of developments in case law over the previous 30 years it would now be “very difficult” to see any constitutional impediment to implementing it. In other words, here’s your chance lads to do something to rebalance the power between a vested interest and the common good.

Of course nothing was done. In 2004, the Bertie Ahern-led government had taken to genuflecting at the altar of the developer. There was no way there was going to be any interference in a market that was making overnight millionaires out of Fianna Fáil’s buddies, who in turn paid financial tribute to the party.

The Green Party attempted to do something about it by bringing in a 90% windfall tax on rezoned land, but once Fine Gael got into power that was dispensed with by Phil Hogan.

Today, in the throes of a real humanitarian crisis in housing, another politician is dusting down the Constitution as a defence for doing nothing.

A serious debate over what powers the government can invoke in what is effectively an emergency needs to take place. Honohan has suggested that the hoarding of residential property by vulture funds could be targeted.

Certainly, the hoarding of building land should be examined in a far more aggressive manner that it currently is. The continuing travesty of awarding land speculation through the rezoning — undertaken for the common good — has still not been addressed. All of these and other issues in relation to the constitutional provisions for private property have to be in the mix to find solutions to the crisis.

The day when a minister can simply wave the Constitution as a defence for not doing anything that might discommode a vested interest should be long gone by now.

Michael Clifford

‘Conned’: a German view of Ireland

First published in 2103 and here in 2015


Chancellor Merkel has “contempt” for Ireland’s bankers. But they are just one part of an elite that exploits the island shamelessly.

Anyone who wants to understand why Ireland could be so rich yet will probably remain poor should learn about Ray Burke. In Ireland, Ray Burke is almost as well known as James Joyce, Samuel Beckett or the U2 singer Bono who, in his sunglasses, always looks like a pudgy fly. People in Ireland don’t have positive thoughts about Ray Burke. After all, he sold their future.

Ireland has been trapped in a never-ending crisis since its gigantic property bubble burst. The banks, above all Anglo Irish Bank, worked ceaselessly to pump fresh money into the already overheated property market – which finally collapsed with the outbreak of the financial crisis of 2008.

The ruined Anglo Irish Bank has just made headlines posthumously after the Irish Independent published transcripts of telephone calls from September 2008. On the tapes you can hear how high-ranking bankers make fun of the crisis. The €7 billion emergency assistance that they demanded from the government would be paid back when they have the money, the bankers agree jokingly – “in other words: never”. That money won’t be enough anyway, says one department head, as he pulled the €7 billion figure “out of my arse”.

The journalist and author Fintan O’Toole says: “The reaction here in Dublin is very interesting. Hearing directly [the bankers’]boundless contempt is shocking. And everyone knows: we are paying for what they left behind.”

In a now legendary all-night sitting on September 29th, 2008 the Irish government agreed to guarantee all bank debts. O’Toole calls this the “most disastrous decision that was ever made by an Irish government”. At least two generations of taxpayers will pay off these debts. O’Toole makes an excellent job of charting the Irish path to disaster in his book Ship of Fools, in which he calls the accounts of Anglo Irish Bank the “most inventive work of Irish fiction since Ulysses”.

The oil off the Irish coast could be the way out of this misery. The oil could be the hope. If the former energy minister Ray Burke hadn’t rewritten the relevant laws as though the oil industry itself held the pen. And if Bertie Ahern hadn’t made an already bad deal for the Irish people even worse.

Burke was energy minister in 1987, when it was decided to change the provisions for oil and grass drilling licence allocation. Until then the state owned 50 per cent of all oil and gas found in Irish waters. In addition, companies had to pay royalties of between 8 and 16 per cent as well as 50 per cent tax. (1, see notes below)

The new rule gave companies 100 per cent of their find and abolished licence fees. In 1992 Bertie Ahern, then finance minister and later prime minister from 1998 to 2008, cut the tax for oil companies to 25 per cent – a provision that remains to this day. (2)

Increasing numbers of Irish people no longer accept this. For instance, the fisherman Joey Murtagh. Standing on the edge of Dublin Bay, with a glorious view over the Irish Sea, he asks: “You know what Ray Burke did?”

Or the psychologist Aisling Murphy. She sits in Dalkey in a pub called The Queen’s, where chicken and tacos are today’s special. Murphy asks: “You know what Ray Burke brought on us?”

The financial adviser Eddie Hobbs has arranged to meet at the motorway restaurant Brown’s Barn, 15km south of Dublin. He asks: “You’re aware of Ray Burke?”

Burke was always surrounded by corruption allegations and went to prison in 2005 because of tax fraud.

The reason this political inheritance is causing such animated discussion now is because of huge oil and gas reserves believed to surround the island. The company Providence estimates the volume of oil it discovered in the Barryroe field, south of Cork, at over 1.7 billion barrels, of which at least 270 million can be pumped. Further test drillings in Irish waters have been similarly promising.

At the moment a barrel of oil costs, depending on grade, between $90 and $100, meaning there could be oil worth many billions of euro in the Irish sea bed. (3) Even the oil companies concede that Ireland is surrounded by massive riches. But the Irish will probably gain none of this thanks to men like Ray Burke and Bertie Ahern.

Screwed over again

Murtagh says: “We are being screwed over again with every trick in the book.” Murphy: “We are a land that lies still while we are bled dry.” Hobbs: “The oil companies won’t succeed on this front. Not this time.” O’Toole: “Under the current conditions, it would be better if the resources stayed in the ground.”

But they aren’t staying there.

In April the American oil giant ExxonMobil began test drillings in the Dunquin Field southwest of Ireland. Off the west coast, Shell is extracting gas from the Corrib field, a source of often violent confrontations with residents for many years.

Two weeks ago the current energy minister Pat Rabbit urged representatives of 70 companies to invest in gas and oil extraction in Ireland. He said: “It is a priority of the Government to encourage investment in oil and gas extraction off the Irish coast and to optimise the value of the discoveries for Ireland.”

Only the Government isn’t making much progress with the optimisation. In May 2012 an Oireachtas committee appointed by Minister Rabbitte presented a report. After examining the rules introduced by Burke and Ahern, they came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave everything as it is.

Oil companies could scarcely find better terms than in Ireland. In most oil- and gas-producing countries in the world the state taps on average 70 per cent of the profits. In Ireland there is just the 25 per cent tax, though this can rise to 40 per cent on particularly rich fields. But Irish rules allow companies to write off all costs for test drillings over 25 years, regardless of where they were carried out, meaning the Irish State ends up with considerably less than 25 per cent.

Opposition is building through Hobbs’s “Own Our Oil” campaign. It is preparing a report looking into how Ireland could profit from its resources, prepared by experts from Ireland and other oil-producing countries.

He points to Norway, where most of the profits from oil production go to the company Statoil– the majority of which is owned by the state. In this way Norway has become one of the richest countries on Earth. The study is to be presented at a major conference and then handed over to government.

“We’re making good headway,” says Hobbs, “and may be finished this year.”

Hobbs is well-known in Ireland thanks to his 2005 television programme Rip-Off Republic. He is viewed as a consumer champion and is known for his populist, biting attacks on the establishment. He became an enemy of the oil industry after the company Providence made a tactical error.

Last September Providence managed to acquire a licence for test drillings in Dublin Bay. How this was possible is puzzling as the bay is a natural conservation area. The platform was to have stood 10km from the coast and would have been visible from land. The residents of Dalkey were the first to mobilise against the plans. Dalkey is a well-heeled suburb of Dublin in which many celebrities and intellectuals live, resulting in the protest being mocked in many newspapers as a revolt of the rich.

But the well-organised protesters also got a hearing and Hobbs took note. He says: “These people were the first to open my eyes to what happens to the oil.” Murphy and Murtagh are some of these people.

Murtagh says: “We became engaged because this was to take place before our eyes. But then it became bigger.” Murtagh has gone to sea since 1972 and has first-hand experience of how Ireland sold its other big resource: fish. Irish fishing waters are regarded as the best in Europe.

On EU entry in 1973 the Irish negotiated a deal that appeared good, but only at first glance: allowing other EU states into their waters to fish in exchange for money for Irish farmers. Murtagh says: “14.2 per cent of European seas are Irish. But we are allowed have only 2.6 per cent of the fish.”

Murtagh’s thesis: Ireland has paid back twice in fish every euro of EU aid received. The Dutch, Spanish, French come with industrial ships and empty Irish waters while EU fisheries policy keeps him ashore. As he talks Murtagh, 57, has tears in his eyes. (4)

Murphy says that the protest in Dublin Bay has triggered something among her friends.

“You have to know that we Irish have no experience in confrontation. Here it’s usual not to make a fuss. On top of that is something that, in psychological terms, you call ‘acquired helplessness’. You find this, for example, among abused women. Ireland doesn’t defend itself. Ireland quietly puts up with it.”

But a new fighting spirit is palpable since the group in Dalkey formed, Murphy says.

“This is completely new, even for me,” she says. “I was raised that institutions are always right and that you don’t raise any objection.”

Great diplomats, terrible politicians

Hobbs says the Irish always tried to find a third way. “You never have good and evil here, right or wrong. What you always have is people who are somewhat good or a little bit right. Above all, we are good at compromise out of fear of insulting the other. That’s why we have produced great diplomats and terrible politicians.”

It’s the same in the oil affair: “The position is, don’t start a row with the oil industry. They should find something and then we’ll find a solution. But there are Irish people who know that now is the time to do something. The only question is: will it be done the easy way or the hard way?”

The fighting spirit of the group from Dalkey was given a lift when their protest had an effect. Last February Providence handed back the licence to drill in Dublin Bay. The official reason was that, though they met all environmental requirements, the Government made a mistake in implementing an EU directive on environmental protection. The unofficial speculation in Dalkey is that the firm was weary of the negative publicity.

After the oil finds off Cork in 2012, Providence, in particular its boss Tony O’Reilly jr, was more than happy to be in the public eye. He promised that all of Ireland would profit. But with growing numbers of Irish people asking why the country profits so little from the resources, it has become increasingly difficult to contact Providence.

Emails from the Süddeutsche Zeitung from last November were answered with a question. Who else apart from Providence was the newspaper talking to, a spokeswoman asked, while keeping alive the hope of a meeting. Then no emails were answered for some time after they apparently landed in the spam folder. In February, a request for a meeting was declined as all managers were on the road, but the company would send materials. That never happened. A series of questions posed this week went unanswered.

That may have something to do with the fact that Providence boss O’Reilly jr is not used to critical questions. His father Tony O’Reilly is one of Ireland’s richest men and his company, Independent News & Media, owns more than 130 radio stations, 100 commercial websites and more than 200 newspapers worldwide – including more than 20 in Ireland. 

O’Reilly jr prefers to speak in safe surroundings. A week ago he told the oil industry website Rigzone that Ireland’s tax regulations were “appropriate for the current state of the industry”. Ireland doesn’t have enough money to search for oil itself and thus, O’Reilly said, needs investors from abroad – and attracts them with low tax rates.

In fact, Ireland has had good experience with low tax rates: a section of the Irish economy booms because of large international companies like Microsoft and Google, which have settled in Ireland because of the low corporate tax rate of 12.5 per cent. This sector is what the Irish Government points to when it says things are improving.

But since 2008, Ireland’s domestic market has been in the cellar, with dramatic consequences. More than 300,000 Irish people have emigrated in the last four years, 40 per cent aged between 18 and 24. That would be the equivalent of 5.4 million people leaving Germany (population 82 million). The State has to make savings, meaning ever less money is available for education, which means there won’t be enough trained staff for international companies – the only economic sector that is working.

“In countries like Greece or Spain the youth go on the street and protest,” says O’Toole. “In Ireland, they emigrate. Now our young people are also leaving because they don’t want to pay back the debts of our bankers.”

The publication of the Anglo Irish Bank telephone calls has revived the outrage. In one extract a banker says: “The strategy is to pull [the government] in, so that they write a big cheque. If they realise the scale of this from the start, they might say it is too expensive for the taxpayer.”

It demonstrated to the Irish public like never before how they were conned ruthlessly by a shameless elite. Even Chancellor Merkel commented on the case. On Thursday evening she said: “I have nothing but contempt for that.”

O’Toole says: “The interesting question now is whether the fury will focus. Whether the people perhaps choose the issue of oil to say: that’s enough. If even Third World dictators can agree better deals with oil companies, why can’t we?” 

He answers his own question: “The Government always views itself in a weak position. All important financial decisions are being taken by the troika of the European Central Bank, European Commission and International Monetary Fund. The Government merely implements. That leads to a situation where they are psychologically incapable of acting independently.”

The fisherman Joey Murtagh, the psychologist Aisling Murphy, the financial adviser Eddie Hobbs and the author Fintan O’Toole want to make sure that, on this matter, the last word has not been spoken. That the Irish people no longer have to pay for institutional stupidity and greed.

“It is completely un-Irish what we’re doing here,” said Murphy, “but perhaps we are the start of something new.”

She laughs very cautiously when she says: “Seen that way, perhaps we’re a kind of avant garde.”

By Christian Zaschke 

– (Copyright: Süddeutsche Zeitung.)