38 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 39
Then Fianna Fáil leader, Jack Lynch, had intervened
to ensure that Roadstone was the preferred bidder
for Irish Cement and former Taoiseach Seán
Lemass was appointed as the first Chairman
of the new Cement Roadstone Holdings
A
s I walked into the elegant Carlisle
room at the Royal Marine Hotel in
Dun Laoghaire in April last for CRH
plc’s latest AGM, many thoughts
flashed through my head. Why am
I here? Why have I been in Court with CRH plc
for 27 years? Why are the political parties and
regulators protecting CRH plc? Why has my
family been blacklisted by the banks for over
a quarter of a century? Where are the media?
Then it dawned on me like an epiphany. This
is no ordinary plc, this is a mafia complete with
criminal structures and behaviour and the
usual protection rackets with every
machination of State and the banks,working
arm-in-arm to protect what I now believe to be
an OCG [Organisied Criminal Group]. The gang
leader, Albert Manifold delivered his usual
CRH systemically flouts competition and
company law with impunity
By Séamus Maye
silky-smooth State of the Nation address. But
the meeting was fronted by a decidedly
uncomfortable Chairman, former Bank of
Ireland CEO, Richie Boucher. You see Richie
was tasked with shielding the Board of
Directors from my unwelcome intrusion.
Richie didn’t deny any of my allegations, just
an unconvincing reply, “that’s your
perspective Mr Maye”.
So just how did this OCG survive and thrive?
CRH plc has been Ireland’s largest company
for several decades and now ranks itself as
the world’s No. 2 in the construction materials
sector. The company is synonymous with
controversy going back at least to the 1969
takeover of Irish Cement.
Then Fianna Fáil leader, Jack Lynch, had
intervened to ensure that Roadstone was the
preferred bidder for Irish Cement and former
Taoiseach Seán Lemass was appointed as the
first Chairman of the new Cement Roadstone
Holdings (now CRH plc). The late Des Traynor,
arguably Ireland’s most corrupt business
figure, also figured on the board of the newly
created monster.
Don’t worry, no cross-party stone was left
unturned, CRH stalwart Tony Barry had his
brother Peter to call on as long-time Fine Gael
Deputy leader.
Labour too was captured, it was under
Labour’s then Minister for the Environment,
Dick Spring that the illegal cement certification
scheme was introduced in March 1983.
The Progressive Democrats hued and
pued about taking down CRH. In the end,
Mary Harney and Michael McDowell played a
good cop/bad cop blinder and frustrated any
attempt to hold CRH to account. The PDs’
betrayed everything they (apparently) stood
for in their eorts to protect this leviathan.
The Greens too hued and pued under
John Gormley and his lieutenants but when
they went into government in June 2007, they
too back-pedalled and acquiesced in the
protection racket around CRH plc.
That’s all the parties that have been in
power since 1969.
By 1973, Ireland was immersing itself in the
EEC. It had to introduce several new laws and
regulations in order to make Irish Law
compatible with EU Competition (Antitrust)
and, later, Money-Laundering, Laws.
This is where it gets really sinister. Ireland
POLITICS
CRH nd Quinn
The competition
including me
Fifty years of
omerta on Ireland’s
biggest company