It’s funny how off the radar, as it were, some issues can be if you restrict your reading/consumption of the media to certain areas. Socio-economic issues loom large in my life, and so does popular culture, so the issue of Johnny Ronan… indeed Ronan as a personality above and beyond his primary employment, didn’t have any traction.
Until, that was this weekend, when following the inevitable creep of his surname into my consciousness through headlines here and there and an – ahem – striking (but frankly, to my mind, not in a good way) cover to The Phoenix last week.
For Ronan it would appear, not merely co-owner of property developers Treasury Holdings, but also handy shorthand for a sort of Celtic Tiger approach writ… writ whatever… has found himself at some sort of media storm, or to put it his way, ‘distracting coverage’ and has therefore taken a break from the day job.
And the nature of this coverage? Well, really who cares, other than to see that shorthand in action… For it appears that Ronan, who, we are told:
…is not going to step down from the boards of the 270-plus companies where he serves as a director. These include Treasury Holdings…
Has been…
No stranger to the social columns, he has been the focus of extensive media coverage of a confrontation with a former girlfriend, former model and TV3 celebrity show presenter Glenda Gilson, outside a pub in Ranelagh, Dublin, a couple of weeks ago.
This was followed the next day by a long lunch at the Ritz-Carlton hotel near his home in Enniskerry, Co Wicklow, during which he summoned a private aircraft to fly himself, Rosanna Davison (25) – a model and former Miss World – and a college friend of hers to Morocco.
Which is nice.
Except…and here is where the shorthand becomes more pointed, as it were…
Much of the negative commentary surrounding the trip centred on the fact that Treasury Holdings, a major property firm owned jointly by Mr Ronan and Richard Barrett, with close to €2 billion in assets on its books, is expected to be among the first tranche of companies to have its loans moved to Nama.
The statement issued yesterday is understood to be the result of concerns that the behaviour of Mr Ronan could affect the attitude of Treasury’s bankers and Nama, in relation to the provision of further finance to Treasury.
Among the developments with which Treasury has a connection is the multibillion-euro Battersea power station project in London. Loans associated with this project are expected to be moved to Nama.
But…
A source close to him said the private aircraft he used to fly to Morocco is owned by one of Mr Ronan’s private companies and that none of the expenses incurred in his trip with Ms Davison concerned Treasury. He also said Mr Ronan and Treasury expected to meet all their bank debts.
Although in a colour piece by Kathy Sheridan that analysis was presented somewhat differently…
However, following the deeply unwelcome attention focused on Ronan’s flights of whimsy, it has been made clear by various sources that his public skites are covered by his personal investment assets, which are quite separate from Treasury. And while those assets will also be going into Nama, they are also not in default at this stage.
Oh great. Well that’s a relief – ‘at this stage’. Fantastic.
People who know both men sigh deeply at Ronan’s “deeply inappropriate” behaviour, while arguing that there are worse offenders out there, throwing lavish parties and living in exile on money that rightly belongs to Nama and the taxpayer. “Ronan and Barrett don’t play golf, they don’t own racehorses . . . You won’t see them at the American Ryder Cup and they won’t be going to Cheltenham next week, unlike some others,” says one.
One can readily applaud, while sighing deeply, this paragon of self-restraint and virtue, this eschewer of golf, of racehorses, of almost all worldly pursuits… bar private jets, limousines, vast bills in North African hotels (I mean, how much does one have to drink in an evening to rack up €668.60 – feck me, straight down to ALDI for tins of Beamish, or if you’re really pushing out the boat their own branded Irish Ale which comes in a handy four pack of bottles). Does he not have something better to be doing, like, ah, I don’t know, attempting to claw back some money so we the taxpayer don’t have to shell out til eternity for a private sector gone mad?
And Christ knows, it’s hard to disagree with Kieran Mulvey, chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission and currently overseeing talks between government and unions, who perhaps sighing deeply when he stated this – but with good reason:
…said that public sector workers felt they were bearing the brunt of the government’s cutbacks.
‘‘They are looking at the stupid and nonsensical goings-on of some people in the private sector who believe they live in a playboy world and then are able to offload their toxic debts into Nama, for which every taxpayer is paying,” Mulvey told The Sunday Business Post.
He said that workers were angry about the government’s failure to tackle corporate wrongdoing.
‘‘They read about the level of bonuses and directors’ fees being paid to people in the banks,” he said. ‘‘It is almost a reward for failure, while they experience cutbacks. I think it’s underlined by the fact that, in the US, 52 corporate individuals associated with banking circles have gone to jail. In Ireland nobody has been charged with anything to date. Frustration is building up.”
Johnny Ronan is 52.
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