Workers Solidarity Movement

The wealthy and their media would like us to be forgetful.

Here is a non-exhaustive list of facts about Denis O’Brien...

Denis O’Brien is a media baron.

Today, he owns Communicorp, a media holding company which dominates national radio via stations like Newstalk and Today FM.

He owns Independent News & Media group which controls the Irish Independent as well as the Irish Daily Star, the Sunday Independent, the Sunday World, Dublin's Evening Herald and (most likely) your local or regional newspaper.

He owns Topaz Energy.

He also owns Digicel, a tele-commmunications company.

The basis of his wealth was securing a mobile phone licence for Esat Digifone from the Irish state in the 1990s.

The Moriarty Tribunal found that O'Brien was awarded this contract due to payments he made to Michael Lowry, the then communications minister, who unduly influenced the bidding process.

In the Tribunal Report of 2012, Judge Alan Mahon wrote of corruption in Ireland: ‘It continued because nobody was prepared to do enough to stop it. This is perhaps inevitable when corruption ceases to become an isolated event and becomes so entrenched that it is transformed into an acknowledged way of doing business. Specifically, because corruption affected every level of Irish political life, those with the power to stop it were frequently implicated in it’.

Denis O’Brien is sometimes listed among the World’s Richest 200 Billionaires.

He lives in Malta so he does not have to pay tax in Ireland.

He profits from the privatisation of public services.

Denis O’Brien will benefit from the creation of Irish Water and the privatisation of water services.

Do you think you should pay your water charges?

WORDS: Tom Murray