Outstanding Achievement

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The Ireland-U.S. Council will present its Award for Outstanding Achievement in 2019 to Denis O’Brien, Chairman & Founder of Digicel to mark his distinguished and successful business career and to underline his notable and important achievements in building bonds between America and Ireland.

The Ireland-U.S. Council Award is also presented to celebrate his significant and generous philanthropy over many years to causes aimed at improving the lives of poor people and those less-fortunate especially in the fields of education and healthcare

Denis O’Brien, Chairman & Founder of Digicel,to Receive the Ireland-U.S. Council’s 2019 Award for Outstanding Achievement at 57th Annual Dinner in New York (The Ireland-US Council)

Via Bank of Island

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Now on Twitter.

Lovely.

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13 thoughts on “Outstanding Achievement

  1. eoin

    You see, you can award a €5 (five) billion contract to a consortium featuring Denis O’Brien because he’s getting a timely award.

    And fupp the begrudgers who’ll tell you the Gardai and CAB are still investigating the conclusions of the Moriarty Tribunal which reported 8 years ago and found that Denis had given assets to a FG minister, the now convicted criminal Michael Lowry, and that Michael Lowry had facilitated the granting of a highly lucrative mobile phone licence to Denis.

    And also, let’s ignore the fact that Digicel is a $8bn debt burdened basket case which had a distressed debt swap earlier this year and is looking at an imminent default on the repayment of bonds. Digicel has operated in the most corrupt places on Earth in an industry pockmarked by corruption, and, after two decades, his business is on its last legs, under a mountain of debt, making losses with cash running out despite selling its assets.

    Let’s also forget that Denis is front and centre of an ongoing €30m Commission of Investigation in Ireland which is examining the sale by a state bank (Anglo) of a business (Siteserv) to Denis in 2013 under the most shady circumstances.

    And let’s also forget that chance meeting between Phil Hogan and Denis at the Mount Juliet resort and the contract Siteserv got for installing water meters in the controversial FG water charging initiative.

    And finally, let’s also forget the sleazy circumstances in 2018 which saw a minister (Denis Naughten) being fired after having secret meetings with the bidder for a state contract which has ballooned from €500m to €5bn, and let’s not forget Naughten allowed the consortium swap out one business and swap in Denis’s Siteserv at the last minute in a multi-year procurement.

    Give Denis the testimonial. As the Wizard of Oz once told the Tin Man”back where I come from there are men who do nothing all day but good deeds. They are called phil…er — er — phil — er, yes…good-deed-doers. And their hearts are no bigger than yours. But! They have one thing you haven’t got! A testimonial!”

    In Denis’s case, that testimonial might just be enough to get his sleazy reputation a pass under FG in 2019.

      1. eoin

        The Moriarty Tribunal concluded Denis gave Michael Lowry around €1m. There have been suspicious unexplained financial transactions involving other FGers around that time also, though there’s nothing to confirm that Denis was behind those additional transactions. Bribes and corruption are endemic in most of the countries where Digicel operates, and the mobile phone business, where a business buys a licence from the government, is a honeypot for corruption and bribes.

        Of course the players in the presentday National Broadband Plan will deny bribes, but if you were an outsider looking in, seeing a contract balloon from €500m to €5bn in a year, seeing secret meetings between the minister responsible for the procurement and one bidder, that minister being fired when he was found out, the concession to allow a change to the consortium at the last minute.

        If this was Haiti, we’d all say, well more corruption, what can you expect.

    1. V

      Maybe the Clintons will present the award
      at a gala dinner

      In the NY Fitz Hotel

      Wonderful
      I’ll get a new frock

  2. andy moore

    Americans love illegality & corruption amongst their elites >> I dunno who the Irish bizzies that may have voted for him >>

  3. Kip

    This reminds me of all those Irish business owners interviewed on TV about their great plans to expand to the Far East.

    Usually followed by a liquidation announcement about six months later.

    What is the Irish-American Council anyway? Just a transatlantic version of the Dublin Chamber of Commerce, Merrion Row chaps backslapping in the Unicorn.

    So far removed from real US it is laughable.

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