Cowen cited in UK Property Row as "not known at this address"!

The Taoiseach Brian Cowen has become embroiled in a row in the UK arising from his family investment in student apartments in Leeds. The Taoiseach and his wife, Mary are listed as two of 12 named investors in a company Carrs Mills Investment Partnership. Timesonline.co.uk report that Carrs Mills Investment Partnership invested in the construction of a student cluster apartments described as a hall of residence at Leeds University. The website reports that the project was financed by Allied Irish Banks to the tune of £12.5 M in 2005 when Cowen served as Ireland’s Minster of Finance. The value of the property is now believed to be significantly less than the initial 2005 value put on the property.
The court action results from the Newcastle based freeholder taking a case seeking payment of ground rents and management fees worth £100K from the investors who the freeholder claims had no right to sub-let the property to Leeds University. The Irish investors will deny this claim.One of Taoiseach Cowen’s partners in the investment was convicted in the Irish courts of administering Clenbuterol (Angel Dust) to cattle in 1996 and sentenced to 12 months imprisonment. Mr Cowen and his co-investors initially took out the loans in 2005 when he served as Ireland’s Minister of Finance. According to a student interviewed at Carr Mills annual rents of around £4,000 are charged by the university. Mr Cowen’s apartment can accommodate seven students in individual bedrooms sharing a kitchen and dining area, suggesting an annual return of up to £28,000.
It was when the developer sold on the freehold to a Newcastle based firm Adderstone Group that irregularities between the developer and the Irish investors surfaced. The freeholder claims that the Irish syndicate sub-let to the university without the authority of the freeholder
The freeholder describes that action as “an irredeemable breach of covenant”. Bills sent out to the individual lease-holders for ground rent and management fees have not been paid. The most recent claim for management fees sent to Mr Cowen’s address as recorded in the Land Registry was returned, with a note attached saying “Not known at this address”. 60 Merrion Square, in the heart of Georgian Dublin and a stone’s throw from Leinster House and the Offices of the Taoiseach. It is a four-storey town house with two residential apartments on the upper floors and offices, which are vacant and available for rent. The property contains the office of Mr Enda Hunston, MD of Mr Huston seems to have an extraordinary interest in the Irish tax dodging rock combo U2 as his horses are called “It’s a beautiful Day” and “Where the streets have no name”. Mr Hunston’s horse Freeloader interestingly raced at the Galway Races in 2007 finishing 2nd in the Guiness Galway Hurdle in front of the adoring Fianna Fail faithful at the Galway tent.

The revelations about Mr Cowen’s financial affairs could not come at a more embarrasing time for An Taoiseach. In 2008 Mr Cowen introduced a guarantee to protect all savers in Allied Irish Banks. AIB is the sole Irish bank that has yet to see a change in leadership following the colapse in confidence in the banking industry. Mr Cowen’s Finance Minister Brian Lenihan recently decried Irish citizens shoping outside the juristiction appealing to their patriotic duty to support native outlets. The revelation about Mr Cowen’s nvestment in British property will further add to the Taoiseachs embarrasment by the property dealings of his former party running mate, Ger Killaly who recently was before the Irish courts in relation to separte dealings in property.

This development will be potentially embarrasing for the Taoiseach on a number of grounds, In late 2008 the Irish Mail on Sunday asked cabinet ministers if they had beneftted from Anglo Irish loans and just 3 cabinet ministers said they hadn’t. One estimate of Mr Cowen’s liability with regard to the iniatial loan runs as high as €400K. Last week his emergency budget established a state asset management agency NAMA to manage properties finaced by Irish banking istitutions where the developer could not meet outstanding payments. While his predecessor Bertie Ahern was in tribunals regarding his finances Mr Cowen was cited as being above reproach and clearly once more we see Fianna Fail people in potential conflict of interest again, beholdedn financially to the same institution that another predessor Charlie Haughey was in debt to. To paraphrase the bank's attitude to the then leader, "What a great little country we are!" No mention of this issue so far today on rte.ie/news.

Cowen’s Late Late Wexford “fun”

There’s an old saying that it started on the late late show. True the programme that gave us P Flynn’s self destruction, the Terry Keane outing, the Annie Murphy scrap and so many others down through the years has finally run into the buffers. Today’s Sunday Tribune reports that prior to An Taoiseach Brian Cowen agreeing to an interview from Wexford Opera House in September this year he insisted on knowing the questions, the guests and ensuring that no ambush from the audience would be allowed.

A Freedom of Information request revealed the extent of contacts over a 2 month period prior to the show preceding the Taoiseach’s appearance. Late Late researchers went to extraordinary lengths to assure the Taoiseach that the interview would be of the soft focus variety. In the words of an email sent to his department in an attempt to entice him on air after the economy was drifting leaderless it would be "fun". Given that immediately prior to the show the cabinet had spent the month of August on their hols one wonder show much more soft you can need? And in light of these facts what does that make of one FF Oireachtas member who this week claims that RTE is too left wing in its coverage of current affairs? That sounds like someone who hasn’t moved on since the 1960’s when RTE authorities were regularly sacked because of “conduct unbecoming”. For anyone interested in how FF believes RTE should behave watch “Scannail” later this week which deals with “The Spike” a drama censored by then Minister Gerry Collins about 30 years ago.

The reality of relationship between the broadcast media and the government is a lot more complex than that but for some people it has yet to move on. According to one insider in local radio an FF supporting independent on his local radio station refuses straight interviews on air favouring the presenter instead to read the questions he has himself composed prior to the interview and supplied to the station. RTE relies on the Minister for Communications to approve a license fee increase and to intervene to regulate sports events as free to air. Compared to how in the past Blair attacked the BBC (under the same commercial pressures) over the Iraq dossier, RTE has never fundamentally undermined the government on an issue of national importance. Reading the tribune today I see why.

There relationship between media and politics should be one of balanced tension. One acting as the guard dog on the other, not the media as the lap dog for the bulldog. Political and commercial decisions have often taken priority over the public’s right to know. The environment created thus has given us the politician as a celebrity, personality and ultimately some sort of hyper sensitive species. It provides the milieu where Senator Jim Walsh is given time to pontificate about Podge & Rodge unchallenged at a time when jobs are being lost, OAP’s and school children feeling the brunt of his cuts. What’s the bet a Christmas TV special featuring Brian Cowen or Mary Coughlan as a guest? As Bunny Carr used to say “Stop the lights”