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Carr Mills Property Development

Here is the Memo of Association. The firm is directed by property developer Enda Hunston. Taoiseach Brian Cowen is related to the firm in this story.

I wonder what Mr Hunston’s history is.

In March 2004, Mr Hunston claimed his signature had been forged on a joint investment agreement over a €3.3m hotel and fishing lodge development in Mayo. His co-investors were former Esat Digifone chief executive Barry Moloney, Mr Moloney’s brothers Alan and James, and British venture capitalist Bruce Dunlevie.

All four denied that they had forged his signature. It was also suggested that the contractor who had been awarded the tender to build the development, was not the contractor (Mitchell O’Grady), Mr Hunston wanted. Apparently Mr Hunston had met Alan Moloney while working at Norwich Union. He had never met Barry Moloney until the events that led to the proceedings began. The case centred on Mount Falcon in Mayo.

In late March, the case was settled, with the four defendants accepting that the signature on the document was not Mr Hunston’s, though they were not responsible for placing the signature on the document. Alan Moloney claimed that Mr Hunston had also admitted to him that he had handed confidential documents to Mitchell O’Grady relating to the tendering process. Mr Moloney said Mr Hunston had apologised for this. He said Mr Hunston had claimed there would be serious consequences if Mitchell O’Grady did not get the contract, and Mr Moloney had taken this as a threat. He asked Mr Hunston to elaborate, where, he said, Mr Hunston replied that the project would have lost the political connections of Mitchell O’Grady.

Mr Hunston denied this.

Bernard Mitchell was involved with Mitchell O’Grady, but Mr Hunston denied there was any payback promised. All of Mr Mitchell’s firms are now dissolved. They were:

BERNARD MITCHELL PLANT HIRE LIMITED
EUROFRONT CONSTRUCTION LIMITED
M & OG CONTRACTORS LIMITED (Mitchell O’Grady)
MASTER OAKS DEVELOPMENTS LIMITED

The Irish Times reported that Mr Hunston’s speciality, when working as a mortgage and pension advisor in the late 1990s, was investment in tax-designated properties.

As well as being director of Carr Mills Property, Mr Hunston is also a director of:

King Oaks Developments Ltd
Hunston Aviation Ltd
Hunston Group International Property Consultants Ltd
Global Financial Index Ltd

He also appears to be a director of

Reventer Holdings Ltd

South County Dublin Development Plan

Developers in bid to push ahead with rezoning of 280 acres in west Dublin

Screamed the headline in the Sunday Tribune a few weeks back. It reminded me of some of the headlines that surrounded rezonings back in the early 1990s. As it turns out, it is not that far removed.

The article says:

Although councillors voted by 19 votes to two against motion put forward by a Progressive Democrat councillor in support of the development two years ago, Sandymark Ltd said it believes its new proposal to rezone some 280 acres of land “ticks all the boxes” and is confident it will be passed.

However, deputy county manager Tom Doherty, who strongly opposed the “entirely inappropriate” previous plans in a report to the council at the time, has told the Sunday Tribune that “it is not considered that there is any reason to vary the views set out in that report”.

Sounds familiar. Interestingly:

The lands include approximately 30 acres owned by Laurence Harney, a brother of former Progressive Democrat leader and health minister Mary Harney, who has said in the past she has “no beneficial interest whatsoever” in the transaction.

It continues:

The land is owned by a group of local landowners and Sandymark, and is located between Newcastle and Rathcoole, not far from Citywest and the commuter towns of Lucan and Clondalkin.

In a document circulated to local residents in Newcastle recently, Sandymark claims that “despite the current economic crisis, the need and demand for houses will return”. It says it hopes to begin construction in late 2011 or early 2012.

A spokeswoman said the number of residential units envisaged had decreased from around 4,000 to 2,500 over 15 years, while the number of acres to be rezoned had fallen from 425 to around 280.

Gosh it’s like a timewarp. No doubt any rezoning of this land would result in much higher land values, so Sandymark and Mr Harney would gain much from a decision by South Dublin County Council to rezone. I was curious about this crowd Sandymark, so I went a digging.

There are actually two Sandymark companies, Sandymark Investments Ltd and Sandymark Construction Ltd.

Sandymark Investments is located at Greenogue Industrial Estate, Co Dublin. Sandymark Investments recently registered a mortgage, financed by Bank of Ireland, for the purchase of lands at Ashbrooke, known as the Murphy lands, owned by Michael Murphy and Michael Murphy Jnr.

Here is the register of the mortgage.

But who owns Sandymark Investments? Well it’s owned by two more companies, Maple Nominees and Maple Secretaries. Here is the memorandum of association for the company.

And who owns the Maple firms? Well I had a look at the books of Maple Secretaries, purely out of curiosity. The directors are listed here. That would be the same solicitors listed on the forms for Sandymark. And note that the address given for the Maple companies is the same address as the solicitor firm in question.

Laurence K Shields
Edmund Butler
Hugh Garvey
Gerry Halpenny
Emmett Scully
Alan Browning (Secretary)

Now one of those names piqued my interest, Hugh Garvey. It rang a bell so I went a Googling. They all work as partners at Mr Shields’ firm on Upper Mount Street. I recognised Hugh Garvey because he represented certain people at the Tribunals.

Of course this got me really interested. So I went digging further.

Well look here. Back in 2002, Sandymark Investments gave £1,000 to one Councillor Colm McGrath (Ind but formerly of FF). If that name sounds familiar, it’s probably because it is.

Mr McGrath is one of the councillors Frank Dunlop claims to have given bribes to. Indeed, Mr McGrath admits to receiving “political donations” from Dunlop. Mr McGrath made several appearances at the Mahon Tribunal, as you can see here. One of the donations involved Dunlop handing Mr McGrath £2,000 cash in a copy of the Irish Times.

He failed to get elected to South Dublin County Council in the 2004 election.

Mr McGrath has an interesting history. He was one of the Top Fifteen back in the early 1990s, or among the top councillors proposing or seconding Section Fours and material contravention motions between 1985 and 1991. He backed the rezoning of the Quarrvale lands from the beginning, lands at the centre of the Quarryvale II module at the Tribunal, made infamous by Bertie Ahern’s alleged involvement.

In October 2007, Frank Dunlop told the Mahon Tribunal that property developer Owen O’Callaghan paid off a debt of £10,700 for Colm McGrath when he was facing a court judgment.

Another interesting bit in all this: Mary Harney’s brother. Mr Harney was listed as a defaulter by the Revenue in 2001.

Of course I am not suggesting anything untoward in the behaviour of Sandymark. They are seeking to rezone the lands, and are doing so in an entirely legal manner. The donation to Mr McGrath was also declared, so all is above board. I was just interested in the names and the faces.

Obama on exceptionalism

James Fallows praises Obama here. At the same conference Obama referred to the language of Austria as “Austrian”. Ouch. It didn’t look like a “casualism” either.

I was watching Hannity earlier and he managed to equate Obama’s reference to Greece with present-day Greece.

But Obama clearly didn’t choose Greece in its present-day form, but rather a time when Greece was exceptional – a very long time ago. And also a time when Britain was exceptional too – not so long ago.

But then, it is Hannity.

If you’re curious you can watch the full press conference.

Ansbacher account holders

Just for the record:

Category A: List of persons who beneficially owned funds in Ansbacher 281
Category B: List of persons who were clients of Ansbacher through College Trustees
Category C: List of persons who were clients of Ansbacher through Jack Stakelum
Category D: List of persons whose sole involvement was the establishment of Ansbacher trusts to which they never transferred any assets
Category E: List of persons for whom Ansbacher conduced business other than the holding of funds
Category E (i): List of persons to whom Ansbacher provided loans in the ordinary course of business
Category E (ii): List of persons provided with an Ansbacher company for the purpose of purchasing property
Category E (iii): List of persons who owned Ansbacher-managed companies which were potential beneficiaries of the Lynbrette Trust

Category A

Roger Ballagh (Solicitor)
Mrs Frances Elizabeth Barrett
John Barrett
Jesus Barrios
Maria Barrios
Tony Barry (CRH chairman)
Sir John Birkin
Captain RG Bryce
John Byrne (Property developer, received 17.5m in back to back loans)
Patrick Carty
Beatrice Carty
DHA Cecil
Ronald Chambers (Robert Wilson & Sons)
Samuel Clarke (Crampton Housing)
Henry Cleeve (Co Killkenny)
Patrick Clonan
Continue reading “Ansbacher account holders”

Michael Fingleton

I’ve been stewing over Mr Fingleton for some time now, and the page one stories on the Irish Times and the Sunday Independent last week only served to heighten my curiosity.

There are, I think, a number of questions that need to be asked:

1. Why did Mr Fingleton get the €1m bonus, and then give it back?
2. Why did Mr Fingleton get a pension of close to €30m?
3. Why were the media obsessed with the former and not the latter sum?
4. Why did Mr Fingleton deserve a substantially larger pension than RBS chief Fred Goodwin (RBS was once the largest company in the world by asset value, unlike INBS)
5. Why has Mr Fingleton received none of the backlash as a result? Unlike AIG executives in the US, or Goodwin himself?
6. Why did the Sunday Independent run a page one story about what it said was essentially a non-story?
7. Why did the Irish Times run the story in apparent isolation from other interesting elements of the story?

Curious indeed. First things first though, that Irish Times story from last week. It raises more questions than it answers. Emphasis mine:

IRISH NATIONWIDE chief executive Michael Fingleton personally authorised a fast-tracked loan of €40,000 from the building society last year to Celia Larkin, former partner of ex-taoiseach Bertie Ahern. The payment was connected to transactions investigated by the Mahon tribunal as part of its inquiry into Mr Ahern’s personal finances.

Mr Fingleton approved a loan of €40,000 to Ms Larkin on March 4th, 2008 without the standard criteria being fulfilled initially on the loan application. Ms Larkin did not provide documents normally required by customers borrowing such loans when she applied for the money.

The loan was provided to Ms Larkin without showing proof of her income, identification, current account statements or details of other loans she had drawn down. Mr Fingleton personally signed off on the loan and no documentation was received by the lender when Ms Larkin’s loan was approved.

Last year the Mahon tribunal conducted inquiries into an account with the Irish Permanent Building Society in Drumcondra called the B/T account from which Ms Larkin received €30,000 in March 1993, and which was used for the purchase of a house in Phibsborough.

The tribunal was told the account held political contributions donated to Mr Ahern’s political operation in the Dublin Central constituency.

Mr Ahern’s disclosure in the witness box in February 2008, when he was still taoiseach, that money from the B/T account had gone to his former partner, caused a huge political controversy. The tribunal was subsequently told by Ms Larkin that she had repaid the money in early February, using a €40,000 loan she had received from Mr Ahern.

Ms Larkin left a signed blank cheque into Mr Ahern’s constituency office in St Luke’s. He later supplied her with a figure for the repayment of the money with interest, and a secretary in St Luke’s filled in the cheque, completing the transaction. A spokesman for Irish Nationwide said that it did not discuss the affairs of customers.

Interesting, isn’t it? But why did Ms Larkin turn to Mr Fingleton? Why did he personally see to it? Why did Ahern give her the money first? Why did Larkin leave a blank cheque at St Luke’s? The Tribunal too was curious about some of these questions. In June last year it put some of these questions to Ms Larkin.

Now, some history.

Up until 1989, building societies in Ireland were regulated by the Registrar of Friendly Building Societies. Regulation was then handed over to the Central Bank. This was amid allegations that building societies were highly secretive and kept information from their members.

Despite the Central Bank taking over regulation, building societies were not without their scandals, some of which will look familiar to us now.

In March 1993, Dr Edmund Farrell, executive chairman at Irish Permanent Building Society was suspended over an investigation into a property deal. The deal concerned Mr Farrell’s £600,000 home in Foxrock. Essentially it seemed that the house had been transferred to the ownership of the society, which then paid off the mortgage. He then leased the house back from the society from 1987 to 1991. The investigation centred on money spent on the house by the society, including the installation of security cameras.

I digress. Back to Mr Fingleton.

The Mespil loan

Under the Building Societies Act 1989, loans made to directors, the interests of directors, either directly or indirectly in any contracts or proposed contracts with the society, must be registered and made available to society members to inspect.

Also under Section 56 of the Act, a society director may receive a property loan of up to £50,000 at preferential rates, but only where it is for their main residence. Any other loan would have to be at commercial rates. In early 1993 this register was reported and no loans to Mr Fingleton were reported.

Here’s where it starts to get interesting, but we have some way to go yet, so stay with me.

The current editor of the Irish Times, Geraldine Kennedy, then a reporter, wrote a story in May 1993 that Michael Fingleton got a mortgage from Irish Nationwide, the society he was managing director of, towards the purchase of a 1-bedroom flat in the Mespil Estate. In all, Mr Fingleton bought four apartments. with one mortgaged from the society.

But Mr Fingleton was not the only one to buy apartments in the estate, and not the only one to get a mortgage from Irish Nationwide. Solicitor Andrew O’Rourke bought two apartments in trust for two daughters of then Fianna Fail taoiseach Albert Reynolds, Emer and Leonie.

100% mortgages were advances to 51 customers to buy 93 apartments. These included the then Attorney General Harry Whelehan, Marian Finucane, AIB’s Anthony Spollen, former publican Dessie Hynes and the then Comptroller and Auditor General Patrick McDonnell.

Of course Mr Fingleton had not declared the purchased of the apartment, as he was obliged to do under the Building Societies Act. He later corrected the record. The following year, further details emerged. Central Bank filings in 1994 showed that seven loans totalling £342,000 were made to people and a company connected with society chairman Peter O’Connor. Five loans totalling £163,000 were made to people connected to director John Murphy.

Four loans with a total value of £125,500 were made to people connected to Mr Fingleton, including the £110,000 loan to himself. Three loans were advanced to Peter O’Connor, son of the chairman. Mr Fingleton’s brother also took out loans.

As long ago as 1994, Mr Fingleton’s salary, then an enormous £249,000 a year, was questioned by shareholders.

In 1999, Mr Fingleton was threatened with imprisonment by a High Court judge over the employment and treatment of a branch manager in Cavan town.

All very interesting. But how does it relate back to our current questions?

Fast forward to 2000, and the Flood Tribunal is in full swing. On April 19, 2000, Frank Dunlop stopped stonewalling and after reflecting overnight, said he had participated in wholescale corruption. I myself was at the Flood Tribunal that day.

Someone else was giving evidence that day though, Michael Fingleton.

The “Starry” O’Brien case

The weekend after Dunlop admitted his involvement, The Sunday Independent and the Sunday Business Post ran with a front page story detailing an alleged £50,000 payment, made to two senior Fianna Fail figures, one of them a Cabinet member. As it turned out this was a story put forward by Denis “Starry” O’Brien, and it later turned out to be false.

Mr O’Brien told the Sunday Business Post he delivered two cheques for £50,000 each to Fianna Fail politicians in 1989. He said he was given a cheque for £100,000 by Owen O’Callaghan which he lodged to a Cork branch of the Irish Nationwide Building Society.

He then withdrew two cheques for £50,000, which he said were passed on to the politicians. One was allegedly handed over to Bertie Ahern in the carpark of the Burlington Hotel in Dublin and the other at the Silver Springs Hotel in Cork. This money was allegedly given in relation to planning at Quarryvale.

Mr Ahern initiated legal action for defamation against Mr O’Brien. On July 10, 2001, Mr Ahern was awarded the maximum £30,000 damages.

But at the end of June, before the case started, Mr O’Brien instructed his lawyers to withdraw his entire defence. Mr O’Brien told The Irish Times that he had decided to “walk away from the case”. He said: “There is nothing in it for me. I was sucked into this. And I am now unsucking myself. I never mentioned Mr Ahern by name.”

An affidavit by Mr Michael Fingleton given to the Flood Tribunal stated that INBS documents produced by Mr O’Brien had been forgeries.

Mr Connolly resigned from the newspaper as a results of its apology over the affair, and Tom Gilmartin, who was totally unrelated to the story, later said he believed the entire affair was a “setup”. Indeed, Mr O’Brien only made the payment of the award to Mr Ahern in 2006, just prior to the deadline, and prompted by media queries. Mr Connolly apparently believes the entire Starry saga to have been a ruse, fabricated by Starry to create allegations similar to the ones Gilmartin was making in relation to bribes given to Ahern.

Fingleton and Flood

In February 2000, the Flood Tribunal wrote to Michael Fingleton seeking all documents and records relating to deposits and withdrawals made at the Patrick Street branch of Irish Nationwide in Cork between June 1, 1989 and September 30, 1989. It also wanted similar records for March 15, 1987 to April 15, 1989. It appeared to be related to the “Starry” O’Brien allegation.

Mr Fingleton was summoned to appear before the tribunal, after undertaking to produce the specific documentation. He was called after the society failed to produce it. He said a search of the society had failed to produce the details of lodgments and withdrawals, as well as cheque journals and other journals for the period between March 15, 1987 and September 30, 1989.

On April 19, 2000, he again appeared before the tribunal, where SC for the tribunal Patrick Hanratty told Mr Fingleton he was in breach of the tribunal’s order. Justice Flood complained that it had taken the society too long to come to that point and did it was not appropriate.

Mr Fingleton said a flood at the Grafton Street branch, where he said some INBS documents were centrally stored had led to the loss of documents.

At one stage, Mr Fingleton said documents had been placed in central storage. Asked where that was, he replied: “Everywhere”. Justice Flood accused him of having a “cavalier” attitude.

More soon.

$1 trillion for the IMF

A nice round figure. But where will the money come from? Gold perhaps?

Discussion at a summit of G20 world leaders about selling International Monetary Fund gold to raise extra funds refers to sales over and above existing plans, a minister said on Thursday.

“What’s referred to here is in addition to what has been previously,” Treasury minister Stephen Timms told reporters at the summit.

A G20 source said earlier there was a reference in the summit communique to IMF gold sales but “the language had not been firmed up” and it was unclear whether it would be separate from the 400 tonnes of gold the IMF committed to sell last year as part of a broader restructuring of its income.

So it has already been agreed that 400 tonnes of gold will be sold, but they might need to sell more. That’s of the nearly 3000 tonnes the IMF holds. If more gold needs to be sold to fund fiscal measures, the price of gold, currently hovering at about $905 an ounce, could fall.

It is an interesting dilemma for people who want to move to gold as a hedge against expected inflation coming next year, on foot of all the money being printed for stimulus packages worldwide.


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