Media

Charlie McCreevy undertook to change the tax laws in ways that facilitated O'Reilly's Valentia take-over of the telecommunications infrastructure

I was on radio in late June talking about the media and the election. Fellow-guests Kevin Rafter of the Tribune and Fionan Sheehan of the Indo amply demonstrated that journalists like to think they do a good job and can get testy about criticism. As it happens, I think those two guys are sharp and do their jobs very well: my criticisms are mostly about how those jobs get defined.

By all rights the Greens should be engaged in a soul-searching exercise, perhaps sharing a retreat-house with Sinn Fein, trying to figure out why the electorate thinks so little of them. Poor SF merely had peace in Ireland to boast about, and still came a couple of percentage points above the party wielding the all-important, media-dominating “Green Agenda”. Even Rupert Murdoch's leading daily tabloid has got some “Buy the Sun and Save the Earth” wheeze on the go.

Stop me if you've heard this before: Trevor Sargent has been a disastrous leader of the Greens since he took charge in 2001, when the party – with a Dublin MEP elected in 1999 and a rising profile – actually looked like it was going places. Instead, though it picked up seats in 2002, its popular vote and representation have stagnated. It gets notably less support in real elections, when electoral minds are concentrated, than it does in opinion polls.

Denis O'Brien is on the way to becoming the richest Irish person in the world. At present, according to The Sunday Times Rich List, he is worth €2.3 billion and that is set to double in three to four years became of the huge success in the Caribbean, Central America and now the pacific of his mobile phone company, Digicel.

The Moriarty tribunal heard from former Taoiseach, John Bruton, and his adviser, Seán Donlon, how O'Reilly and his executives conveyed an impression of hostility towards the Rainbow government because it failed to concede to O'Reilly's corporate demands. O'Reilly denied this.

The prestigious American magazine published a critique of O'Reilly as CEO of Heinz raising virtually the same issues now being pushed by Denis O'Brien.

Allegations about a ‘crony' board, questions about lavish parties and the use of a corporate jet

Tony O'Reilly wields enormous media, corporate and political clout. He has escaped accountability so far. Now Denis O'Brien has challengend him within IN&M and questions arise about his political access. By Vincent Browne and Martin FitzPatrick.

The death knell of the newspaper has been anticipated many times before, but they keep bouncing back.