Why Darragh O’Brien’s Ambitions Are Like A House Of Cards [Fianna Fáil Housing Minister receiving tens of thousands of euro in donations from property developers]

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  1. Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien was moulded by the Fianna Fáil old guard, but after a bruising few days, his long-held ambition to one day lead the party may be stalling. He might have hoped to be the Minister to solve the housing crisis, but record rents, Celtic Tiger-era property prices and a failure to hit supply targets mean the voters are as dissatisfied as ever.

    It has been a tumultuous week for Mr O’Brien. While he was in Helsinki,

    Finland, for the Housing Europe Conference, the domestic housing crisis he presides over was upgraded to ‘disaster’ status by the President, Michael D Higgins.

    A day later, on Wednesday evening, Mr O’Brien was accused in the Dáil of a political ‘stroke’ after introducing a last-minute amendment to the Electoral Reform Bill to allow political parties obtain lottery licences for political fundraising.

    Political fundraising is a delicate issue for the Malahide man. The region where he grew up was once synonymous with planning corruption and property developers holding influence over politicians.

    It would become the epicentre of corrupt land dealings examined by the Mahon

    Tribunal, which was established in 1997 and delivered its final report in 2012.

    Mr O’Brien’s political mentor and friend, the former Fianna Fáil councillor and TD for Dublin North GV Wright, was one of three people found by the tribunal to have received corrupt payments.

    Mr Wright took Mr O’Brien under his wing as his political protégé and their friendship has endured to this day.

    Some of the biggest property developers in the country live in Mr O’Brien’s Dublin Fingal constituency, and some of them gave donations to the-then young first-time TD. Other donations came from prominent local businesspeople.

    Political donations are typically intended to cover the cost of election campaigns.

    An analysis of Mr O’Brien’s donations for 2007 and 2008 shows that €13,790 (33.5%) came from those in property and construction.

    However, almost 70% (€9,585) of Mr O’Brien’s donations from construction and property interests came the year after he was elected, in 2008.

    In 2008 Gannon Homes wrote a cheque for €1,065 to Mr O’Brien, which was declared. The company is owned by Gerry Gannon, one of 10 ‘Golden Circle’ investors approached by Anglo Irish Bank to buy shares in the bank in 2008.

    The group, which bought shares in the bank using loans from Anglo as part of an illegal scheme to reduce businessman Seán Quinn’s 25% stake in the bank, were dubbed the Maple 10.

    The bank was ultimately nationalised in 2009.

    Gannon Homes remains active in construction and recently completed a housing development at Belcamp in Malahide.

    In the early 1990s, Mr Gannon’s firm succeeded in having large chunks of land in North Dublin rezoned. Mr Gannon built large housing and apartment developments in the north county, including around Malahide Marina in the early 1990s.

    In July 1993 the council approved the rezoning of a green belt in the area for a Gannon Homes development after a motion for rezoning was tabled by GV Wright and his fellow Fianna Fáil councillor, Michael Kennedy.

    The Oireachtas register of interests for 2007 and 2008 show that Mr O’Brien received among the highest amounts of political donations. In 2007 he received the fourth-highest amount (€22,310) of declared donations of any TD, and the fifth-highest in 2008 (€18,736).

    Other donors to Mr O’Brien included Newpark Holdings, owned by property developer brothers Thomas and Joe Flood. It donated €1,065 in 2008, which was also declared.

    In 2003 Newpark Holdings made a €500,000 settlement with Revenue after a fake invoice tax fraud. There is no suggestion Mr O’Brien was aware of the wrongdoing when he accepted the donation.

    Another donor to Mr O’Brien at the start of his national political career was Albany Homes, which donated €1,065 in 2008. The company is owned by David Daly, who is from Malahide in Mr O’Brien’s constituency.

    The largest payment from a single building firm came from Flynn & O’Flaherty which made a combined donation of €3,065, in the two years examined.

    The company is owned by James Flynn and Noel O’Flaherty. Filings with the Companies Registration Office show that Mr O’Flaherty lives in Mr O’Brien’s constituency.

    In 2007, Tulca Developments wrote a cheque for €1,000 to Mr O’Brien. The company, since renamed Erigo Construction, is owned jointly by Laurence Flood and Joseph Flood. Its registered address is in north county Dublin.

    In 2007, Thomas Smyth and Sons Co Ltd wrote a cheque for €2,500 to Mr O’Brien, the maximum permitted in a single year.

    The company owned Smyths Cock Tavern in Swords as well as Smyths pub in Malahide. In court in 2005 the co-owner, Noel Smyth, was told by a judge that he was not fit to be a publican and was accused of engaging in ‘child exploitation’.

    The business was fined €66,500 over 35 breaches of legislation governing the hours worked by minors. In one case, a 15-year-old girl worked until 1.30am, five-and-a-half hours after she should have finished. The company is no longer trading.

    Rules for political fundraising were tightened in 2009, with the maximum allowable donation to a candidate falling from €2,539 to €1,000 in a single year. The level of donations having to be declared also fell from €634 to €500.

    The list of donations also includes lesser-known building contractors and estate agents.

    In March 2007, Darragh O’Brien recognised that delivering housing and helping young people onto the property ladder were central to electoral success.

    At the Fianna Fáil ard fheis in the RDS, the then county councillor for Fingal made a speech praising his party’s intervention in the housing market by supporting first-time buyers.

    Beaming with confidence on the podium, he could not have imagined that, more than a decade later, he would be tasked with fixing a housing crisis fuelled by his party’s repeated failures.

    It is not surprising that Mr O’Brien is sensitive to opposition claims that his policies are too ‘developer-led’, as he fears being linked to a past he is undoubtedly keen to distance himself from.

    In the RDS in 2007 ard fheis, Mr O’Brien praised the then finance minister, Brian Cowen, for ‘giving direct assistance to first-time buyers by doubling the ceiling on mortgage interest relief’.

    Mr O’Brien told the ard fheis that night that he was a recent first-time buyer and that he knew ‘how difficult it can be to buy your first home’.

    Land registry records show Mr O’Brien bought a home in Malahide, with a mortgage of €321,600, in March 2005. The records show he sold the property in May 2015.

    Land registry records also show that Mr O’Brien and his wife Susan Maxwell registered the purchase of a separate home in Malahide around two months after this speech. The couple still live in the same home with their daughter.

    Parts of Mr O’Brien’s speech to the ard fheis 14 years ago could easily be reused today.

    ‘All of us here have family and friends who are living at home with parents or who are renting apartments and houses. The vast majority of people want to own their own homes and set down roots,’ he said.

    Mr O’Brien praised the work of Fianna Fáil – the self-styled ‘party of home ownership’ — in housing delivery and insisted supports to first-time buyers must be continued. ‘This government has assisted dramatically in increasing the supply of new homes. We must continue to help first-time buyers get onto the property ladder and reduce the expense for people who have bought in the last few years.’

    He also pleaded for more measures to help would-be home buyers, saying ‘further changes to stamp duty need to be made. We must be careful that any amendments do not fuel house price inflation…’

    Mr O’Brien had quit his job with Friends First/New Ireland to focus on his political aspirations. Less than a month later, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern called a general election and Mr O’Brien became a TD a month after that, in May 2007, taking the third and final seat in Dublin North at the age of 32.

    The ard fheis was an important night for Mr O’Brien, who was keen to present himself as a national figure internally.

  3. Why are our housing minsisters always people who clearly have no background in construction.

    Can they not at least find someone who gives the illusion of being qualified or giving the slightest fuck

  6. He is a greedy sh!te and he isn’t smart enough to hide it because he believes that his butter is Kerrygold and working class folks are lard.

    F##k this guy

    I would go as far to say he has a hatred for working class Dublin folks that are being driven out of the city to Kildare and beyond to make more profits for his filthy doners.

    Malahides Peter Griffen *Property Guy*

  10. Saw this fat cunt in pavilions a while back. Cunt should be ashamed to show his face anywhere in this country.

    Literally his double chin in suits is picture perfect greedy politician to me

  11. “Political donations are typically intended to cover the cost of election campaigns.”

    That’s not really the case though, is it?

  12. Holy moly a Fianna Fáil politician got donations from property developers in 2007 and 2008

    That’s absolutely crazy dude, next they’ll say rain is wet

  14. Where are the usual suspects from this sub who say people bitch and whine for no reason, the government is not corrupt, the government has people’s welfare at heart rather than their doners and lobbyists; everything is fine so, stop with the doom and gloom. LOL. It is people like these who are a bigger problem than these politicians.

  18. Nothing surprising there but sad to see none of those guys are being called out or properly Investigated! We lack this in Ireland! I am sure many of those politicians would be found guilty of receiving a lot of “donations”
    Im not saying to judge a book by his cover, but looking at the guy, I have many doubts that he is an ethical and legit man!

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