DDDA & Anglo Irish Bank & Revolving Doors
- Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean FitzPatrick is on the board of the DDDA.
- DDDA chairman Lar Bradshaw is a board member of Anglo Irish Bank.
- DDDA owns 26 per cent of a company called Becbay (1).
- DDDA director Niamh O’Sullivan’s day job is as a director of Arup Consulting(2).
- Mary Finan … Bank of Ireland … member of the DDDA council … consultant to the DDDA
- Ann Butler: Ex-10-Year-Director EPA-Ireland; DDDA Consultant; Contractor/Independent Consultant for Covanta at Poolbeg & at Rathcoole (Energy Answes alias).
(1) Becbay borrowed about €400 Million mainly from Anglo Irish Bank to exploit Sandymount Strand.
(2) Consultants to proposed DCC-Covanta waste-To-Toxics Incinerator at Poolbeg?
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Wheels within wheels within Dublin’s dockland authority
SHANE ROSS, Sunday April 29 2007
http://www.independent.ie/business/wheels-within-wheels-within-dublins-dockland-authority-124825.html
IT IS always hard to detect the wheels within wheels. But the gigs that land in companies associated with the directors of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority are remarkable.
Everyone knows that the DDDA chairman Lar Bradshaw is a board member of Anglo Irish Banks. And everyone knows that Anglo Irish Banks chairman Sean FitzPatrick is on the board of the DDDA. These guys have an uncanny ability to recognise each other’s talents.
So should we really be that surprised if Anglo gets so much business from the Dublin Docklands Development Authority?
Provided all of the business goes out to tender, that is fine.
DDDA owns 26 per cent of a company called Becbay.
Becbay bought into Paul Coulson’s glass bottlers site which was sold for €412m.
Becbay borrows from Anglo Irish Banks. Indeed, the DDDA borrowed a pile from Anglo in January and then poured the money into Becbay. A nice little number for Anglo.
No doubt Sean and Lar had nothing to do with any loans from Anglo to the DDDA.
DDDA director Niamh O’Sullivan’s day job is as a director of Arup Consulting engineers. The annual report reveals that Arup works as a consultant to the DDDA.
Another director, Angela Cavendish, was on the board of a company which did plenty of business with Anglo some years back.
Super ambitious serial director Mary Finan – believed to be eyeing a board place on the Bank of Ireland – is a member of the DDDA council. One of Mary’s biggest gigs is as chairperson at Wilson Hartnell, another firm which has worked as a consultant to the docklands company.
When we asked the DDDA for a comment on all the cross-directorships on the DDDA – the declaration of interests, etc – it sent us back a po-faced reply: Becbay had tried several banks for its funding of the glass bottle purchase; it followed best practice, etc, etc.
Funnily enough, it failed to respond to the question about DDDA council member Mary Finan and her Wilson Hartnell’s consultancy to the DDDA.
The bland statement in defence of the DDDA was signed by none other than Wilson Hartnell. No doubt they charged a fat fee for it.
This entry was posted on October 11, 2008 at 3:29 pm and is filed under Anglo Irish Bank, DCC-DDDA, Dublin Docklands Authority, Revolving Doors. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.
October 30, 2008 at 9:10 am
If this was in the United States there would be a serious criminal investigation.
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Run_to_da_hills
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055391581
“Insider trading”, Is it taken lightly in Ireland?
Reading in thee press today about two officials from Anglo Irish Banks that purchased shares pprior to the state going guarantor on the banks. These guys obviously knew the outcome and that the shares were going to rise and so far have made a nice tidy sum for themselves.
If this was in the United States there would be a serious criminal investigation.
What is the outcome in Ireland? Will they just get a light slap in the hand and told not to do it again just like the rest of them that almost let our banking system go down the toilet?
http://www.independent.ie/national-n…e-1488613.html
November 2, 2008 at 7:14 pm
Some people headed for the hills from DDDA. Now DDDA is facing lawsuits and the North Quay plan is in disarray; its flagship U2 tower project is stalled and there is a €32.8 million exposure to the leveraged high-risk IGB development.
In the private sector, that would be called failure.
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Monday, November 3, 2008
Docklands agency may pay high price for private-sector endeavours
JOHN McMANUS
OPINION : THE DUBLIN Docklands Development Authority has had its fair share of problems of late, writes John McManus
The €200 million “U2 Tower” project on Grand Canal Dock has been put on hold by the Geranger consortium, citing the current state of the property market. Further south on the Poolbeg peninsula, the authority is an investor in Bernard McNamara’s ambitious project to redevelop the Irish Glass Bottle Site. Like most developers, McNamara is under pressure and was reported last week to be reviewing the timelines on a number of developments.
But by far its most immediate problem is the fallout from Seán Dunne’s challenge to the planning permission granted by the authority to his rival Liam Carroll.
Last month, the High Court upheld a challenge to the authority’s decision to grant planning permission to Carroll’s North Quay Investments for its eponymous €200 million development in the docks. The scheme is a lynchpin of the authority’s plan for this part of the docks and it was granted the permission under the authority’s fast track of Section 25 powers, bypassing the normal process.
The court found in Dunne’s favour because of the existence of an earlier agreement between the authority and North Quay under which North Quay would cede, free of charge, some land that the authority wanted. The agreement gave rise to a “reasonable apprehension of bias” on behalf of the authority in reaching its decision on Carroll’s scheme in July 2007, the court found.
Following his victory, Dunne is now reported to be seeking a High Court order to have the €85 million office block built under the permission torn down. The authority was expected to appeal the decision, but it emerged two weeks ago in a separate but related case that it will not.
The reason was not disclosed, but the decision must have implications for the second case, which is a challenge by Treasury Holdings to the North Quay permission on the basis that agreement between North Quay and the authority gave Carroll’s company an unfair advantage in terms of influencing how the area would be developed.
The presumption is that Treasury’s case will be successful, which leaves the authority looking at multi-million compensation claims from Dunne, Treasury and possibly even Carroll.
However, given that all three need to work with the authority in the future, there must be room for some horse trading. But it is an uncomfortable place for a State agency to be and it raises questions about how it conducts its business and the level of corporate governance at the body.
The decision to enter into the “secret agreement” with Carroll seems to be at the heart of its predicament. Its objective – to the extent that we know – seems to have been reasonable; to allow the authority to assemble a site on which to create a public space that would be in keeping with its remit to develop the docklands from a social as well as commercial perspective.
The authority presumably did not realise that its action would be perceived by its other developer clients as putting them at a disadvantage. Either way, it seems sloppy and not really the way that taxpayers’ money should be spent.
It does, however, seem to be in keeping with the authority’s vision of itself as a “can do” organisation, not your typical State agency, and very much of the new entrepreneurial Ireland. In that respect, it was reflecting two of its former leading lights, Lar Bradshaw, the former chairman, and former director Seán Fitzpatrick, the chairman of Anglo Irish Bank.
However, this exuberance would appear to have led to several missteps, the most problematic being North Quay.
But other deals could prove equally costly, most notably the Irish Glass Bottle site, where it has invested €32.8 million of taxpayers’ money in an unsecured loan. If, as it appears, it chose to live by rules more appropriate to private sector endeavour than State agency activity, then it must be judged by that same yardstick.
It is facing lawsuits and the North Quay plan is in disarray; its flagship tower project is stalled and there is a €32.8 million exposure to a leveraged high-risk development. In the private sector, that would be called failure.
© 2008 The Irish Times
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2008/1103/1225523316814.html
November 11, 2008 at 2:30 am
FF donor gets plum job amid cries of cronyism. He was named yesterday as chairman of the State’s job creation body, Enterprise Ireland.
By Michael Brennan
Tuesday November 11 2008
A POLITICAL donor to Taoiseach Brian Cowen has been given a prestigious State agency job.
Hugh Cooney, an accountant and former Offaly minor footballer, gave a political donation of €1,000 to Mr Cowen before the last general election.
He was named yesterday as chairman of the State’s job creation body, Enterprise Ireland.
Mr Cooney donated the money by means of a golfing fundraiser at Hollystown Golf Club, near Dublin Airport, in September 2006.
It was organised by one of Mr Cowen’s friends from Offaly, architect Michael Kelly, as an election fundraiser. Mr Cowen attended the event on the day, played on a team and presented the prizes afterwards. It raised €18,000 for Mr Cowen in total, which was declared as required by law to the Standards in Public Office Commission.
http://www.independent.ie/national-news/ff-donor-gets-plum-job-amid-cries-of-cronyism-1532780.html
December 19, 2008 at 11:53 am
[...] Lar Bradshaw is (or was in October) the chairman of Dublin Docklands Development Authority. Sean Fitzpatrick is (or was then) on the board of DDDA. Donal O’Connor who has just succeeded [...]