The Irish Times has decided to give loads of space today (2 June) for Denis O’Brien to publish an unchallenged self pity but am I not great piece. Denis trots out the now old line about him only being an ordinary private citizen without perhaps even being aware the rest of us ordinary private citizens lack both the power to demand our own IT column or the wealth & power to intimidate almost every media outlet into silence. He even says the decision to do so was made by him in a nanosecond!
The Irish Times has decided to give loads of space today (2 June) for Denis O’Brien to publish an unchallenged self pity but am I not great piece. Denis trots out the now old line about him only being an ordinary private citizen without perhaps even being aware the rest of us ordinary private citizens lack both the power to demand our own IT column or the wealth & power to intimidate almost every media outlet into silence. He even says the decision to do so was made by him in a nanosecond!
Even more extraordinarily after trying to say his transactions are just those of the ordinary citizen he then illustrates how they are not by spinning out a tale of how he saved Ireland’s banking reputation and a load of Irish companies using his personal wealth & power. Whether or not the tale he tells of his motivations is the full story how can he not understand that no one can be allowed to have that sort of influence over all our lives in secret?
Denis if you wanted to use your wealth to help people in Ireland you’d do what the vast majority of ordinary people in Ireland do and live here for tax purposes. You call yourself a republican but the actions of the wealthy 1% in on the one hand avoiding tax and the other funding politicians was corroding the sham that is democracy in Ireland even before you decided to add in silencing the media. Unchallenged such actions convert us into serfs under the control of masters who think they know best.
WORDS: Andrew Flood (Follow Andrew on Twitter )