The Irish Times has been running a series of articles by “business leaders” this week, called “Beating The Downturn”
I have to say, I quite liked Denis O’Brien’s contribution today. The sooner he gets control of that shitrag from O’Reilly the better.
Was he wearing a ra ra skirt when he wrote that.
He can cheer and motivate all he wants, but the crowd has gone home and the stadium is empty.
It would be nice if he paid his taxes here. But no, he is given a platform to preach to the great unwashed. Where would you get it? I have no time whatsoever for Mr.O’Brien. He owes this country money in my opinion
Indeed.
Its the only one that comes to mind, O’Brien giving O’Reilly a kick in the nads when he gets a chance
Who is talking down the economy, I love how people make accusations of people talking down the economy but don’t cite any examples, in most cases it is realism, not talking down the economy.
Hmm, what is Dennis O’Brien looking for from the government? Is there another license up for grabs, maybe he thinks that he can get his hands on some of the public services that he suggests the government sells?
A self-serving and self-aggrandising person. Sorry to be rude but Fuck off Dennis O’Brien, .
Are you insane? Did you like this part?
He wants the tax payer to finance mortgages so he can shift his apartment blocks without cutting the price.
O Brien doesnt even pay any taxes here, and he’s telling us how we should spend taxpayer money!
I find it sad that the IT has been running the series all this week and every commentator to date has focused on construction and trying to get people to buy houses. I hope that at least one commentator will have the balls to stand up and say that construction should be a small part of our economy, low houses prices are good for our competitiveness and we need to get back to focusing on our exporting industries. If our business leaders are still wrapped up in property property property as our economic future we are facing an unpleasantly long downturn.
This article confirms my suspicions about the people who have power and influence in this country. They seemed determined to enslave the population to debt and working poverty. Either the people wake up very,very quickly or we’ll be in the same sinking boat as the US. Of course the fecker who wrote this article will have bought all the life rafts before the good ship Ireland sinks. Feck him.
While I doff my cap to Mssr. O’Brien and his entrepreneurial success, I find it hard to take seriously a lecture on how either the real economy in, or the fiscal position of The State is solid from someone who lives in neither.
Mr. O’Brien lives in Malta and has a reported net worth of some €2.2bn. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge him a moment of Maltese sunshine or a cent of his gross earnings.
I can not seriously, for one second, believe that he has any understanding of the reality on the ground for Mick and Biddy Public as they wrestle with the levels of price inflation that exist here. How they struggle daily with the deficits in infrastructure; be it transport, health, eduction, utilities, or how people on income from the minimum wage up to middle level earners have become trapped in the consumer orgy of the last number of years that exploded house prices (and yes, they were ALL adults and willing participants at the orgy).
The constructive analysis from “the younger economists” has been writ large for most of this decade, they have descented and yelled “The King is Naked” pointing out the vacuous nature of the Celtic Tiger boom. But as one of their number recently pointed out, that was seen as unpatriotic.
While sentiment is a factor, so too is facing up to the truth. In the face of well funded vested interests with access to all levels of government (not to mention the government itself), spinning like whirling dervishes, running around like Cpl. Jones from Dads Army, telling us to “Don’t Panic” and that everything is fine, it is important to create a sense of reality, otherwise we will just end up rearranged the deck chairs on the Titanic. Yes, Ireland plc will continue. Yes, times are are about to be harder. Yes there will ultimately be an end to the down turn. Yes, house prices will collapse. Yes, many people will loose a lot of wealth. Yes, there will be opportunities to make money. Yes, there will be personal suffering and No, Ireland is not overly well placed to deal with the next few years. Yes, we did blow the boom.
Blue Horseshoe
…let’s hold your horses there for a moment Blue Horseshoe (pun not deliberately intended 
) while we remember the same “entrepreneurial success” of the guy who you are doffing your hat to in this rainy country,
is the same “entrepreneurial success” under investigation of the Moriarty Tribunal relating to alleged payments made to politicians for certain unethical favours (e.g. possibly a mobile phone license).
This type of “entrepreneurial success” stinks and reeks of the same type of Galway Tent nonsense and cute hoorism that IMHO needs to be wiped from this country.
I’d rather be doffing my hat, nay I’d lay my hat on the ground, to help a Kerry Toad, make his way accross the route of the Macroom bypass every day 'till it be built (which could be a very long time) before any doffing to this fellow!
Except if you decide to fuck off to Portugal, or Hungary.
ARW, completely agree with your sentiments. Of course, very clever of the IT to choose Quinlan, Quinn, Lynch and O’Brien - all property magnates - to prescribe solutions to our woes.
Found it all a bit worrying. What if they get their way?
Bernard McNamara next week?? 
O’Brien actually mentions Bernard McNamara (as well as a number of other) as somebody the government should turn to for advice on how to weather the current economic issues. I can only imagine what he would advise - I have a vision that instead of Father Jack in the corner shouting “drink”, it would be Bernard McNamara shouting “bailout”, altough maybe that is a role for country tom.
Bailout!!!
2006
A consortium led by property developer Bernard McNamara is to pay €412m for the site of the former Ringsend glass making plant in Dublin
rte.ie/business/2006/1110/southwharf.html
2007
McNamara to pay €288m for Burlington
rte.ie/business/2007/0403/jurys.html
Thats nuts! peanuts like 
Ahhhhh, that article says the Dublin Docklands Development Authority owns 26% of this project, is the DDDA some sort of Government organisation, semi-state or quango. Have we, the tax payer paid a part of this crazy price. I am not sure what sort of an organisation it is but the following org chart is on its site
https://www.dublindocklands.ie/files//about/images/20070416032238_org_chart.jpg
Every industry in Ireland should be regulated into a state duopoly and everyone in Ireland should be awarded a licence in dubious circumstances.
Then everyone can amass a €2.2 bn fortune and fuck off to somewhere nice like Malta to avoid paying tax on it, while jetting in an out to spend time in their various mansions while taking the utmost care not to spend more than 182 nights a year in the country.
Sounds like a plan.
Its becoming clearer and clearer that the Tiger was a scam perpetrated by a wealthy clique who have made out like bandits on the back of a younger generation who will spend the next 30 years funding their retirement, be it in Malta, Marbella or wherever. Anywhere but here with the rest of us.
The only potential beneficiaries from the proposals outlined by Mr. O’Brien above are members of his own social circle. His solution is for the State, to which he contributes nothing, to pick up the tab on behalf of his mates who were both greedy and stupid enough to believe the hype that was regularly printed about them in the same media outlet in which his article appears above.
What right do they have to lecture any of us about whats good for this country when it is the establishment, of which they are a constituent part, that has cheerleaded us into the current impending financial crisis?
Mr. O’Brien and his cronies are a part of the problem, not the solution.
This article is muck and should be consigned to the toilet where it belongs, period 
Denis, I wish I had the ‘confidence and self belief’ to go out an borrow a shitload of money and then spend the next 40 years working to pay off some horrible shoebox in the middle of nowhere, to make some other old fart like you a bit richer - but I don’t.