John Burns: Lack of solidarity from NTMA on State savings while Crowley swaps RTÉ for media regulator

While pressure grows on Irish banks to pass on interest rate increases to savers, the State remains just as stingy. At the end of 2022 the National Treasury Management Agency was looking after €25 billion in State savings. In March it increased rates for the first time in 15 years but only on three of the seven schemes, and only for new customers. The return on the 10-year National Solidarity Bond went from 10 per cent to 16 per cent, an annual equivalent rate (AER) of 1.5 per cent. This is what Bank of Ireland is now offering for the first year of its supersaver deposit account, while its one-year term deposit account rate was recently increased to 1.25 per cent.

The 10-year bond is as good as it gets with State savings. Among the schemes whose rates were left unchanged by NTMA was a four-year National Solidarity Bond, which has a 2 per cent return, or 0.5 per cent AER. Not much solidarity in that. Worse yet is the three-year savings bond, which offers a derisory 1 per cent, or 0.33 per cent AER. In response to questions, the NTMA always said it “continues to review rates offered on all products”.

Earlier this year Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said banks “can’t have it both ways” on interest rates, raising them for mortgage holders but not depositors. The Government can’t either – pressuring banks to increase deposit rates while leaving their own unchanged.

Crowley swaps RTÉ for media regulator

Sinéad Crowley, who recently stepped down as RTÉ’s arts and media correspondent, will start work as director of media development at Coimisiún na Meán at the end of the month. It is the highest profile appointment so far by the new media regulator, which inherited 39 staff from the Broadcasting Authority of Ireland in March and has 60 now, with a further 12 due to start this month.

Will inheritance cause a problem with my weekly disability payment?

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Trump Media’s convenient complaint about short sellers

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The commission, which will also regulate online content, says it plans to have 164 personnel by early next year. More will be required for the next phase of expansion “and further recruitment will begin next year in this regard”.

One wonders if this will satisfy Meta which, as The Irish Times reported earlier this week, has been pressuring the Government to ensure the “rapid and full resourcing of the media commission”. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president for global affairs and former British deputy prime minister, has raised the issue twice with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and with Minister for Enterprise Simon Coveney.

Meta, which wants policing of its European operations to remain in Ireland, has never said how many personnel it would like Coimisiún na Meán to hire. The last time the Government put a number on it was February 2022, when Minister for Media Catherine Martin told the Seanad that “in the longer term it may require up to 300″.

DAA seeks aircraft noise monitors in Wicklow

DAA is involved in a development in Roundwood, where the airport operator has applied for planning permission to install an aircraft noise monitoring terminal near the local GAA club. The 6m high mast is one of 23 the DAA is installing “around county Dublin”, as part of an expanded noise-monitoring programme agreed with the regulator. Other terminals are planned for Swords, Donabate and Clondalkin. Given that Roundwood is 65km away from Dublin Airport, we’ll be fascinated to discover what level of aircraft sound the microphone mast picks up.

AI ambassador’s new roles

Dr Patricia Scanlan, Ireland’s first AI ambassador, has filed a report to the Department of Enterprise about her first year in the voluntary role, to which she has committed herself “for a second and final year until May 2024″. Quite a lot of that may be taken up at committee meetings. Although the Government already has an Enterprise Digital Advisory Forum, and a Working Group on Trustworthy AI Principles and Guidelines, with Scanlan a member of both, it’s now going to set up an Artificial Intelligence Advisory Council, with her as chair. She may need ChatGPT to keep track of all the minutes.

Eddie O’Connor joins Irish ‘wine geese’

The new director general of the Bordeaux estate Château Tour des Termes, which has just been bought by Irish energy entrepreneur Eddie O’Connor, says the aim is to create a sustainable vineyard that can cope with global warming. “We will work on every step – from vineyard to distribution – to match our goals in terms of sustainability and wine quality,” Julien Brustis told me. “Eddie O’Connor’s expertise in renewable energy and business development will help, as well as being a deeply curious and passionate wine lover.”

O’Connor promised himself a vineyard after he sold 75 per cent of Mainstream Renewable Power to a Norwegian investment firm. The amount he has paid for Château Tour des Termes is “undisclosed” but we imagine he had plenty of change out of the €370 million he netted from Mainstream.

O’Connor is the latest in a long line of “wine geese”, wealthy Irish entrepreneurs who invested in Bordeaux and whose names still appear on some of the best wines, including Dillon, Lynch and Barton. More recent arrivals include Lochlann Quinn, who bought Chateau de Fieuzal in 2001, while Paddy McKillen is down the road at Chateau La Coste in Provence.

Shee betrayed by ‘Judas’

The Limerick property developer John Shee thinks he knows who helped the Mail on Sunday track him down to an apartment in Nice in 2015, where he was hiding out from creditors and the Irish courts. In a new autobiography, Memoir of a Failure, Shee says he agreed to be interviewed by the Mail if the newspaper explained how they’d found him. A journalist “showed me an anonymous note he’d received, with a Google Street map picture of the apartment building where I was staying, and a circle marked around”. An accompanying note said: “John Shee is here.”

The co-founder of Mowlam Healthcare, who went bankrupt two years ago with debts of €160 million, believes he recognised the “handiwork” of the author of the anonymous note, dubbing the person as Judas in the book.

It took Nama more than a year to serve a summons on Shee, and in Memoir of a Failure he gleefully recounts the expensive measures he took to evade them, such as mounting CCTV cameras on the 3m high wall around his house. Nama finally nabbed him at Shannon Airport in November 2013 as he arrived to catch an 8am flight. Shee claims his email was hacked or someone from the airline disclosed information about his travel plans.

Maybe it was Judas.

*This article was corrected on Sunday, August 20th, 2023. An earlier draft of the article incorrectly stated that John Shee believed he recognised handwriting on the note that was shown to him