Miriam Lord: Denis O’Brien reveals the secrets of his success

“Reasoning with Denis O’Brien.” Now there’s a novel idea. With the Dáil in recess last week, members of the Oireachtas slipped up badly by missing a tasty travel opportunity and the chance to reason with Denis over the wisdom or otherwise of setting himself on a collision course with the national parliament in the courts.

On Thursday, O’Brien was at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica to share the secrets of his success at the School of Business and Management’s Reasoning with the CEOs series. Digicel in the Caribbean drummed up publicity for their boss on Facebook and Twitter, with students invited to “Come reason with our Chairman and founder of the Digicel Group, Denis O’Brien” and “learn how to become a business mogul”.

At the very least, the Ceann Comhairle (on behalf of the Oireachtas plaintiff) and TD Catherine Murphy (on behalf of the people and politicians doing what they are elected to do) should have been dispatched to the Windies for a spot of “reasoning” with the billionaire businessman.

As it turns out, Digicel prematurely supplied the answer to the secret of his success by posting a moody picture of Denis gazing pensively into the distance alongside the lines: “My name is Ozymandenis, King of Ker-ching. Look on my writs, ye mighty, and despair.” Actually, that isn’t really what appeared. The photo was accompanied by the revelation: “It all started with a vision.” Simple as that.

And to think we wasted years listening to evidence in Dublin Castle under a mistaken impression that it all started with something else. You could have knocked us down with a copy of the Moriarty tribunal report.

The event was live-streamed (it was lashing rain in Jamaica on Thursday) with a very relaxed O’Brien doing a question-and-answer session before proceedings were thrown open to the floor.

It made for good listening. Denis had time, business tips and lots of encouragement for his youthful audience. “We’re all good at something,” he told them. “I know what I’m bad at. I’m not great at HR , for example – it’s too much touchy-feely nonsense.”

He explained how a chance meeting with an American entrepreneur at the Dublin Horse Show steered him towards telecoms . He kept their conversation in his head “and then in 1991, the European Union made Ireland give licences out to people and that’s how I got into the business. Pure luck – and it’s a lesson of talking to everybody. You know . . . you learn so much when you meet people and talk to them.”

Mind you, the Moriarty tribunal wasn’t too happy about alleged conversations he had with people he met and talked to – Michael Lowry among them, finding that the former communications minister assisted O’Brien in his bid to secure that crucial initial mobile phone licence. Denis vehemently disputes those findings.

One student asked if he could live his life over, were there things he wouldn’t do. “Well, I invested in the newspaper industry – I wouldn’t have done that,” he replied. “I lost a fortune . . . I invested €500 million in a newspaper business and it’s worth 20 per cent of that today. So my wife, when I talk to her about the cost of everything – the family, you know, the whole overheads – she just says, ‘Independent Newspapers’.”

Those pesky rows about household overheads? We’ve all been there.

Listening to Denis was like listening to Enda Kenny or Michael Noonan talk about the Irish economy. It seems Jamaica has been going through a rough time too, with the IMF also paying a call, but things are improving.

According to O’Brien, the island now has a balanced budget and is the best-performing economy in the Caribbean, although the benefit has yet to trickle down to the wider population.

But having “taken the pain”, the country is set for rapid growth.

“I’m positive, really positive and I’m not spoofing to you, I’m actually being genuine about this: the really difficult decisions made are now going to carry you on a magic carpet. And this country can be a tiger economy within the Caribbean economy.”

You can’t beat a good tiger economy. And it isn’t only Enda who has a weakness for the aul hyperbole. What would Denis do if he were prime minister of Jamaica? Over there, he is the Hon Denis O’Brien, OJ, which means Order of Jamaica.

“I think businesspeople should be tempered. In other words, they should be restrained in telling people what they should and shouldn’t do. If I meet the prime minister . . . I never tell a prime minister how to run the country; if the prime minister asks me for a view, I’ll give her a view.”

Then Ireland’s most cherished tax exile said Jamaica’s experience was not unique. “By the way, we had the IMF in as well in Ireland because we were the dark poster boy child when all our banks lent money to everybody with no security, and we blew up our whole banking system and our debt-GDP went to 145 . . . And we’ve had cod liver oil in Ireland now shoved down the throat for the last six years,” said the man who resides for tax reasons on an island in the Med.

“So the changes that you’re undertaking here economically, we’ve lived through in Ireland – and we screwed up royally.” So what’s with all the “we” stuff? You’d need a very long spoon to administer a dose of cod liver oil all the way from Ireland to Malta.

BEWARE THE KNOCK ON THE DOOR TONIGHT: IT MIGHT BE A POLITICIAN It's Halloween, which is as good an excuse as any to abandon parliamentary business for a week. TDs and senators were exhausted; speculating on the date of a general election takes an awful lot out of politicians. And that's not to mention the amount of time they had to spend incarcerated in Leinster House while waiting for votes.

Time which could have been far better spent putting up election-style posters advertising the important public meetings (the scourge of crime, solutions for small businesses, inheritance tax, CAP reform, etc etc) they are hosting back in the constituency. Under the law, candidates can only erect election posters 30 days before polling date, which explains the current countrywide proliferation of notices for public meetings.

Fine Gael’s Mary Mitchell O’Connor, for example, is currently beaming down from the lampposts of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown inviting voters to a meeting next week about dementia.

The Seanad sat 11 times since returning on September 23rd after a nine-week summer recess. The Dáil sat 16 times since September 22nd after a similar break. On balance, it was a merciful release not to have them fretting around the corridors during the week, ogling rivals’ election leaflets and dreaming up excuses to hold public meetings.

Tonight marks that rare occasion when householders respond to a knock on their door by showering canvassers with praise and sweeties when asked to “help the Halloween party”. Maybe our vote-hungry politicians could take advantage?

Perhaps Enda could dress up and go door to door, asking voters to "help the Fine Gael party". If you're in Castlebar and a big pumpkin turns up talking makey-uppy guff in a hammy voice, throw a few monkey nuts into his bag and send him on his way. That'll be the Taoiseach.

Gerry Adams could land on a few doorsteps with a defibrillator and yell "trick or treat". He could order himself to dress up as a member of the IRA army council, if only he knew what one of them might look like.

Or perhaps the Taoiseach and Sinn Féin leader might take to the doorstep as twins. Gerry called Enda a “spoofer” on Wednesday, so there’s definitely the pair of them in it. Then again, Gerry could be the pot to Enda’s blackened kettle.

Mary Lou could cover herself in transfers and say she’s an election pact, but that would be dressing up the fact Sinn Féin’s pact is very one-sided at the moment.

Micheál Martin would want to be careful in Cork if he decides to go around the houses asking voters to "help the Fianna Fáil party". They tried that before under various leaders and it didn't end well.