obituary | Broadsheet.ie

Noel Hanlon (right) canvassing in Longford with Albert Reynolds in the 1980s

Noel Hanlon.

Stogie-chewing Longford ledge.

What was he really like?

Via The Sunday Independent:

But what he lacked in finesse made him something of a legend in more polished business and political circles, where even opponents grew to respect his adversarial style and stubborn determination.

…Success enabled him to drive a flash car, live in a new Georgian-style house with a swimming pool and invest in property. But he always remained a blunt if at times generous, hard-edged self-made man.

When a majority of his workers went to his father’s funeral in St Mel’s Cathedral, they found themselves docked a half-day’s pay for their trouble.

Hanlon, who had two-way glass in his office so that he could see out but nobody could see in, was ready when a group of irate shop stewards knocked on his door. “I didn’t ask you to go – so you went on your own time and I don’t pay you to do things on your own time,” he told them.

…Hanlon was soon appointed to the board of the state business rescue agency Foir Teoranta, (although he owed it money at the time) and a director of Aer Lingus in 1980. In 1992, he was appointed chairman of the VHI,

Before the fall of the Albert Reynolds’ government, Hanlon was appointed chairman of Aer Rianta, the national airport authority. In 2002, there were claims that the state company had sent €5,000 in “brandy and cigars” as a gift to the minister’s office some years before.

“A lot of people will be delighted to see me go,” he said in an interview with David Murphy in May, 2004. “I have been 23 years a state chairman. I have always stood for good corporate governance.”

Others didn’t think so and when he presented four departing directors of Aer Rianta with £9,000 watches as gifts in October 2004, the Labour Party was outraged. Hanlon then paid for the watches himself….