Undaunted austerity fighter - Village Magazine

12June 2015

HEN Mick Wallace

raised some uncomfort-

able questions in the

Dáil last October about

the sale of Siteserv to

Denis O’Brien and the role of the Irish

Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) in

the deal, he was roundly abused by gov-

ernment ministers, including his

constituency rival, Brendan Howlin.

Phone calls were made to several

newsrooms by O’Brien’s media handlers

and Wallace’s speech went largely unre-

ported. Some days later, the former

chairman of the IBRC, Alan Dukes, pro-

tested loudly over the remarks in a

lengthy column in the Irish Times and

called for the comments to be with-

drawn from the Dáil record by the

Wexford TD.

His pertinent questions about the

timing of the Siteserv deal and the sub-

sequent award of the lucrative contract

to install water meters to O’Brien’s

company went unanswered and the

controversy was buried until Catherine

Murphy revived it, not for the ﬁrst time,

in the House on Thursday th May.

Once again the media were asked to

suppress her comments and O’Brien,

Dukes and others trotted out widely

published attacks on the Kildare deputy

accusing her, among other things, of

lying and using stolen documents.

O’Brien was given most of a page in the

Irish Times on Tuesday nd June to

attack Murphy whom, he said, had used

Dáil privilege to “gain notoriety and

political advantage for herself”.

“O’Brien himself with his court

injunction on RTÉ has made a circus out

of it to such a degree that his own

friends in Fine Gael are distancing

themselves from him and his threat to

Dáil privilege”, Wallace said of the latest

twist in the IBRC/Siteserv debacle.

“I got a call from one journalist in a

national paper last October to say that

several news outlets had been con-

tacted and warned not to pursue what I

said in the Dáil about the Siteserv deal.

Dukes had a free run at me in the Irish

Times”.

As someone who has been the subject

of vicious attacks in the O’Brien con-

trolled Independent newspapers with

no less than  front-page stories pub-

lished about his ﬁnancial diﬃculties in

its daily edition, Wallace knows some-

thing about media interference and

selective banking practices.

“I know how banks operate and the

idea that Denis O’Brien would ring the

bank to say he wanted the term

extended on his loan repayments is per-

fectly normal. The diﬀerence on this

occasion is that it is taxpayers’ money

he is using. The question I was trying to

get an answer to was: “How in God’s

name did O’Brien’s company get the

water contract so soon after buying

Siteserv?’”. He is still waiting.

Wallace is not convinced that his

namesake, no relation, and IBRC liqui-

dator, Kieran Wallace and Eamonn

Richardson of KPMG, will shine suﬃ-

cient light on the controversy to allay

many suspicions when his review is

completed and has plenty of grounds

for scepticism given his experience with

internal investigations he has wit-

nessed into Garda wrongdoing and

other matters during his four years in

the Dáil.

“If you follow what goes on in govern-

ment it is a regular thing to see conﬂicts

of interest in diﬀerent inquiries and

investigations. The penalty-points

scandal was full of internal investiga-

tions that went nowhere. Many of the

crime correspondents ignore serious

wrongdoing in the force because they

depend for their stories on the guards”.

Wallace has, with Clare Daly, been to

the fore in calling for greater transpar-

ency and fairness in the way the

country is run. He has had his share of

trouble since the collapse of his

We paid every

penny due of

the pensions

“

INTERVIEW Mick Wallace, TD

Undaunted

austerity ghter

Frank Connolly interviews Mick Wallace, TD

June 2015 13

company, M & J Wallace, which was put

into receivership after he was unable to

meet bank debts of some €m.

However, he was not made bankrupt

and says he still leases the wine bars and

coﬀee shop in the Latin Quarter from

the banks which took them from him;

employing  people in jobs that pay

well above the industry norm.

Notwithstanding the continuous

years of hostile reporting of his ﬁnan-

cial aﬀairs by the Irish Independent,

Wallace insists that he settled his issues

with the Revenue over the under-decla-

ration of VAT which arose because of his

genuine eﬀorts to save his construction

business, and made payments for thir-

teen months until a High Court

judgment for €.m in favour of ACC

eﬀectively brought the company down.

He also insists that the widely held, and

reported, view that he withheld pension

entitlements from some of his employ-

ees, is simply false.

“We paid every penny due of the pen-

sions. I was ﬁned for late payment and

this was due to a row over whether we

owed money for people who had left the

company”.

After watching assets once valued at

€m drop to €m in the property

crash he believes that there is another

scandal about to emerge over the

manner in which huge proﬁts are being

made by certain investors, including US

vulture funds, which are getting in on

the act while others are excluded from

privately-organised sell-oﬀs.

“The IBRC issue is just the tip of the

iceberg when it comes to insider dealing

in the sale of distressed assets”, he

claims.

Across the country, Wallace believes

that over half of the population is strug-

gling to pay their bills at the end of the

month and these are the people search-

ing for a political solution to their

personal and family crises.

“We have never witnessed such num-

bers of people in such a diﬃcult place.

These are whole sectors of society who

are poorly represented. They want soci-

ety run in a fairer manner. Sometimes I

listen to people in the Dáil going on

about things and they are clueless.

There is a serious shortage of people

with experience in the real world

including how to run a business. And if

you think the Dáil is a talking shop what

does that make the Seanad. The great-

est load of b….x”.

Wallace does not do clinics or attend

every second funeral in the constitu-

ency as other politicians do with their

time but he is a frequent speaker in the

Dáil, contributing ﬁve or six times a

week since he was elected after topping

the poll, in .

“I could top the poll the next time or I

might not get elected at all. I said when I

was standing for election that I don’t do

parish pump stuﬀ, clinics or funerals. I

said I would be a national politician

because that is what people need. I

might lose votes from some people who

supported me last time but I have stuck

to my word”.

He might lose votes over his stance

on other subjects including abortion

where he supported Daly in her eﬀort to

repeal the Eight Amendment, and over

their invasion of Shannon airport in

search of US weapons. But it is his cam-

paigning against austerity that is likely

to shore his position when the election

comes around over the next eight

months or so.

“Neo-liberalism has never been as

strong. The stupid decision to sell Aer

Lingus which is a proﬁtable company is

an example. It is wrong to suggest that a

small airline cannot be successful. Busi-

ness does not have to be massive to

survive”, he argues.

He believes that Fine Gael will be the

strongest party after the election and

may well have the option of joining with

a few right-wingers from the Shane

Ross or Lucinda Creighton groups of

independents to form a government. He

won’t be among them.

He welcomes the initiative which has

emerged from the RightWater cam-

paign for a policy charter around which

the left, including Sinn Féin, the smaller

parties and left independents, trade

unions and community activists could

unite.

“I would very much welcome if a seri-

ous and substantial agreement around

sensible and credible policies among

like-minded persons on the Left was to

come out of this initiative. I am not

talking about a new party but a set of

policies that the mass of the people who

are struggling can relate to”.

He also believes that people are

crying out for honesty and truth in the

media and was angry but not surprised

by the research of UCD lecturer, Julien

Mercille, which showed that only % of

articles written in the national press on

solutions to the economic crisis were

against austerity.

“What we are missing very badly is

real, serious independent journalism. It

could improve how most things are

done in the public and private sectors if

we had a media that were not so wedded

to the neo-liberal agenda”. •

A scandal

about to

emerge over

the manner in

which huge

proﬁts are

being made

by US vulture

funds, while

others are

excluded from

privately-

organised

sell-oﬀs

“