{"id":44686,"date":"2025-09-05T05:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T05:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/44686\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T05:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T05:22:08","slug":"carey-told-enterprise-ireland-board-he-had-no-choice-but-to-resign-as-chairman-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/44686\/","title":{"rendered":"Carey told Enterprise Ireland board he had no choice but to resign as chairman \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ex-chairman of Enterprise Ireland<\/a> (EI) told the board he wanted to stay in the role but had been left with no choice but to resign.<\/p>\n

Michael Carey<\/a> stepped down as chairman of the enterprise body and the Housing Agency in June after his company, East Coast Bakehouse<\/a>, failed to file its accounts on time.<\/p>\n

In a message to the EI board before the announcement, Mr Carey said the delay had become a source of \u201cpotential embarrassment\u201d for Minister Peter Burke<\/a> because of the minister\u2019s responsibility for the Companies Registration Office<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He wrote: \u201cWhile this is a widespread issue for many businesses (circa 15,000 late filings per annum), we have received particular media focus due to my role as chair at EI and the Housing Agency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Carey said the decision was unfortunate and was down to \u201csome management\/administrative errors\u201d. He told the board that rectifying the accounts issue had been further delayed because his company also needed to change auditors.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no suggestions of any financial or accounting issues at the business. It is a purely administrative issue and of [a] failure to comply with our corporate governance responsibilities,\u201d the message said.<\/p>\n

Records from Enterprise Ireland detail how the announcement was carefully timed so that the board was kept in the loop before the resignation went public.<\/p>\n

A message from EI\u2019s interim chief executive Kevin Sherry to Mr Carey said: \u201cWhen you have a statement ready, just [let] me know if you wish to send a separate note from you to the members of the board informing them of your decision.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Carey responded to say: \u201cWill email you in next few minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Sherry then asked if the resignation letter would be sent to Minister Peter Burke and when it was likely to be issued. A message from Mr Carey said: \u201cYes, I\u2019ve spoken with and emailed the minister. The statement is issued now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resignation was also notified to all staff of Enterprise Ireland in a personal message sent from Mr Sherry.<\/p>\n

\u201cMichael gave huge time and commitment to Enterprise Ireland and was dedicated to supporting Irish exporting businesses at all stages of their development,\u201c he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout his time as chairman, he constantly focused on how our organisation can better support Irish businesses. He brought the voice of the client and the insights of an entrepreneur to the table and ensuring that clients were at the heart of every conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Enterprise Ireland had initially refused to provide many of the records surrounding Mr Carey\u2019s departure and only did so following an appeal under Freedom of Information laws.<\/p>\n

Asked about the documents, the agency said it had nothing further to add to the public statement it made in June.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ex-chairman of Enterprise Ireland (EI) told the board he wanted to stay in the role but had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[79,33551,33550,18,12586,19,17,33549,4772],"class_list":{"0":"post-44686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-companies-registration-office","10":"tag-east-coast-bakehouse","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-enterprise-ireland","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-michael-carey","16":"tag-peter-burke"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}