If there was any irony in a former chairman of the RTE Authority being set upon by a whirl of TV cameras, microphones and questions, it was lost on Mr Jim Culliton who resolved to remain silent yesterday about his association with Ansbacher (Cayman) Ltd or companies linked to it.
Mr Culliton - currently chairman of the Hibernian Group, former chairman of the engineering group, Unidare and former chief executive of the building materials company, CRH - was the first industrialist to become a chairman of the bank when he took the helm at AIB in 1993.
He held that position until 1995 and it was in that capacity that he attended the Public Accounts Committee's DIRT inquiry at Kildare Street, Dublin, yesterday.
At 1 p.m., he left the relative calm of the proceedings to face a media scrum and began the long walk to his lunch. As journalists trod a thin line between physically barring his way and shadowing his every step, Mr Culliton stared fixedly ahead.
Had he any response to being on the list of 120 names? Could he talk for a moment? Had he any comment to make? Did he have an Ansbacher account, yes or no? Would he have anything to say to the High Court inspectors? Finally he said: "I have nothing to say, thank you."
The response was unusually brief for a businessman who is no stranger to media attention, and has given dozens of interviews through the years. Among economists and industry strategists, his name lives on in the Culliton Report, a review of industrial policy produced in 1992 by a top-level committee which he chaired. The report, with particular reference to income tax, described the taxation system as oppressive, unfair and likely to stifle enterprise at a time when unemployment numbers were reaching 300,000 and emigration was rife.
Mr Culliton, an accomplished snooker player, was born in Dublin in 1934, attended the Christian Brothers School at Synge Street before joining Roadstone as a pit clerk in 1952, rising through the ranks to become marketing manager and, in 1973, chief executive. He was instrumental in the merger of Roadstone with Irish Cement and became chief executive of the new entity, CRH, in 1974.
In 1984, the told The Irish Times that there were two, almost separate, economies operating in the State, one an IDA-assisted series of multinational companies, the other, the traditional industries, groaning under the weight of the taxation system. He retired in 1988 but four years earlier had joined the board of AIB, and, in 1985, was appointed chairman of the RTE Authority, turning the State broadcasting company around from making an expected £1 million loss into an £800,000 surplus in four months. He is also a former president of the Marketing Institute.
