Vincent Browne interview (Part 1)

VB: In one of your speeches (at the Foroige annual conference last year) you said we are defined by our purposes, in a sense, we are our purposes. What are your purposes and, by implication, who are you?

MR: Do you mean my personal purposes or my professional purposes?

VB: In the sense that you mentioned in the speech. In the sense that you are your purposes.

MR: I was talking in that context about a voluntary group and the extent to which they would handle their purposes. I suppose in my own case, it is to make a difference.

VB: To make a difference in what way?

MR: To contribute in a positive way to life is being lived and cared for.

VB: Life, being lived and cared for, by whom?

MR: To be involved in the community around us and to try and feel that I have done something, however small, in relation to that community. I have a very strong sense of the importance of realising that we cannot, whether as lawyers or business or whatever, flourish unless the community around is also flourishing. That you cannot live apart from community. We all know that although there are many advantages at the moment, there are also some serious problems.

VB: Like what?

MR: That I would have been conscious of that from a very early stage, poverty, and I'm not just talking about material poverty, I'm talking about the poverty of very real pain, homelessness, dependency on drugs, difficulties for young people. All of these things, the myriad of problems which are there and which create a sort of divided society.

VB: If you care about all these issues of poverty, homelessness, drug dependency, and these are your purposes, what are you doing on the board of governors of the Bank of Ireland and the board of Smurfits, and what are you doing being a partner in Arthur Cox?

MR: What do you think I should be doing?

VB: I'm not saying. I'm just asking you. If you care about all these issues, what are you doing on these boards?

MR: It isn't inconsistent to be on the board of. . .

VB: It is an indirect way, to put it mildly, of dealing with these issues that are so linked to your purposes and to what you say you are.

MR: The companies [that I am involved with] are also conscious of these things [the social problems of poverty, homelessness etc]. I am very satisfied, for example, in relation to the Bank of Ireland that a huge amount of awareness in that respect to be the sort of work that they are doing in relation to the millennium scholars. I was chairman of the Social Affairs Committee of the Bank of Ireland board of governors and the amount of work that is spent on the community. . .

VB: Yes, having robbed the exchequer of millions and millions of pounds through the DIRT scam and other scams.

MR: I think that's an unfair statement.

VB: That's what happened. It [the Bank of Ireland] had to pay back £30 million and they got away without paying anything in penalties, or hardly anything.

MR: I think that's all a matter of public record and what's been said has been said and one can go over what has been said by the bank and public accounts committee and subsequently, but you are asking me about my . . .

VB: You are claiming that the Bank of Ireland is an organisation dedicated to community welfare and I'm pointing it to you that you have to look at that in the context that they are robbing the State of tens of millions of pounds.

MR: And I'm also saying that that issue or that stage is one that has been at very great length discussed in public and there is closure on it now.

VB: Who says there is closure? But, getting back to your purposes, you claim that your purposes define what you are and that your purposes are to make a difference in terms of the social problems you have listed and I am asking you what, then, are you doing on the board of governors of the Bank of Ireland?

MR: I don't see any inconsistency at all because this is one of the things I believe in very strongly is ethical alliances.

VB: Ethical alliances and the Bank of Ireland?

MR: I wear a number of different hats.

VB: Talk with your Bank of Ireland hat for a moment about ethical alliances.

MR: Just let me finish, Vincent. I want to answer the question that you have raised because I think the fact that I have worked in the voluntary sector for many, many years is immensely valuable because I can see things from both sides and, you may not want me to get on to this, but I really do want to say something about the whole notion of the voluntary sector.

I have started The Wheel and its purpose is to try and get strength in the voluntary and community sector by bringing all the groups together and I think this can make the voluntary sector as a whole very powerful. Initially we had only a few groups involved, but now we have up to 600 involved.

And one of the things that The Wheel is doing is forging alliances with the corporate sector and the Government has established a committee to devise ways in which people can be given incentives to volunteer their time to the voluntary agencies. It's a fantastic opportunity to do something.

(A brochure explaining The Wheel says it is "not encumbered by any hierarchies or affiliations, political or otherwise. It turns freely within the community and voluntary sector, the corporate world and government structures, while being independent of any one . . . The Wheel is the bringing together of the `can do' spirit of the community and voluntary sector in Ireland." It states that the core values of The Wheel include the fostering and support of a better sense of community and the promotion and support of volunteering.)

VB: Let's talk about the Smurfits. Are you happy with the way Smurfits is run?

MR: I am happy the way Smurfits is run.

VB: Even with the share price performance over the last 10 years?

MR: At the moment, Vincent, as you know yourself, the share price is not a reflection of the value of the company and there are cyclical industries which go up and down and there are times when it is very difficult to . . .

VB: This isn't cyclical.

MR: Well, if you look at what's been happening in the stock market, there have been distractions, as it were, coming up to the end of the last century in relation to the so-called new industry stocks and even there there are some extraordinary - I was looking at one of those companies recently, the value of the shares was about $30 in late 1999, went up to about $120 and is now $13. So I mean, there are extraordinary things happening.