Focus, Ireland, focus – 1990s not that important

Despite living in Ireland for 20 years, despite being Irish on both sides of my family, despite being married to an Irish woman and having Irish children and Irish in-laws and Irish friends, despite all that and more there are times when I'm completely dumbfounded by the Irish people. This is one of them.

Now first I should say that it may be that I'm misinterpreting the excessive focus of the Irish media and Irish Twitter users on the report of the Moriarty Tribunal. Yes, that again.

I hope I'm wrong and that the average Irish person is not really that exercised by the report's publication. I'd actually like to believe that for most people a bad result in Ireland's soccer game with Macedonia tomorrow night will actually cause them more distress. I hope that's how it is.

It's just that the radio and the Internet are still full of people fuming over the report, which is, after all, about a government tendering process that happened 15 years ago! And I haven't seen anything that says that the government got a bad deal. They wanted competition in the cellular phone market and they got it. Despite some of the more emotive claims, it bears no relationship to what happened at Enron.

Now maybe one of the losing consortia would have done a better job than eventual winners ESAT, but maybe not. What I remember of that time was how surprised I was at the speed with which the market was transformed. We went from one stodgy, overpriced, under-performing state-owned mobile phone company to a fully competitive market in next to no time. I don't think anyone could argue that ESAT didn't do what it was supposed to do.

Of course there are aspects of the deal that stink, but there are a lot of smelly government tenders in every country. It's important that government tenders be as transparent and equitable as possible, but at least in this instance we got a decent company and a competitive marketplace.

I'm not saying that if it can be proven that a politician took money from a businessman that he shouldn't be prosecuted, but I gotta figure if that were possible it would have happened long before now. You have to bear in mind that Judge Moriarty's report represents a (2,000 page) summary of 14 years of public hearings and his conclusions.

Public hearings. As far as I can tell all the facts presented in this report were already in the public sphere, which is why I can't quite understand why people are getting so worked up about it now. (Probably because most of the irate Twitter users were only in grade school when these facts were revealed the first time.)

There are real problems facing this country right now. If corruption is one of them - and I suspect no more so than in America or other western democracies - then let's learn the lessons from the mobile phone license tender and move on. Anything more than that - such that might even cause our new government to lose focus - would be far worse than just burying the whole report. We're in a big economic-financial hole and beating ourselves and each other over something that happened in the mid 1990s is totally counterproductive.

{Photo: TD (MP) Michael Lowry, who was at the center of the Moriarty Tribunal's investigation.}

Ireland needs ITLG's American optimism

Right smack in the middle of Ireland's jaw-droppingly doom-laden last couple of weeks there were a series of events organized by the Irish Technology Leadership Group. The ITLG is a non-profit organization of Irish and Irish-American Silicon Valley leaders whose objective is to foster links between Ireland and Silicon Valley that will help generate high-tech success stories for Ireland.

To make this happen the ITLG assists Irish companies with marketing, fund-raising, developing strategic partnerships and other key commercial tasks. In addition, the ITLG opened the Irish Innovation Center in San Jose. The IIC, which opened in March, affords Irish start-ups a space in Silicon Valley, from where they can establish links that will provide these Irish companies with access to technology and connections that are vital for technology businesses today.

The other thing the ITLG can provide is optimism. ITLG President John Hartnett, in particular, just oozes optimism. Hartnett bubbles over with excitement when he gets going.

Hartnett's an Irishman who has done well in America, but that's not enough for him. He's keen to bring the rest of his fellow Irish men and women with him. He's all smiles when he is talking about the possibilities for Ireland in the 21st century, which stands in stark contrast to how most people in Ireland feel today.

ITLG's Chariman is Craig Barrett, the former head of Intel. Barrett has a different demeanor, but is no less positive about Ireland's future. Barrett is like a hard-nosed football coach. He lets you know it's going to be a tough game, but he also has that top coach's ability to convince you that you will stop that fullback on the 4th down play at the goal-line.

Both men are inspiring and Ireland sure needs a large dose of that right now.

I also had a chance to sit with a couple of other members of the ITLG. They were also positive about the ITLG's mission, but it wasn't hard to detect some frustration. Too many "redundant conversations" - the same conversation with basically the same officials over and over - is what I heard. I can easily understand. The Irish government is like a fish on a hook - willing to listen, but not really able to do much.

If anything made me uneasy about the ITLG visit it was that they would be sucked into the defeatism and pessimism that just seems to hang on the air here now like a foul-smelling cloud. You can't avoid it. It gets in your lungs and takes over your whole being.

Ireland desperately needs someone to keep hope alive and the ITLG is doing that. I hope the small Irish companies they're dealing with can imbibe the ITLG's upbeat, American can-do attitude and not get dragged down by the all-encompassing negativity that currently stalks Ireland.

At least we still have Google and we aim to keep them

Anyone who willingly reads the business and finance pages in Ireland's newspapers is asking to be scared. Skyrocketing unemployment, bankrupt banks and a state that is piling up debt, which is getting pricier by the day. On top of that property prices are still tanking and a survey published yesterday claimed Ireland was the worst place to live in Europe. Unsurprisingly, people are streaming out of the country at a rate not seen here in two decades.

Bad news all around. Well, not quite everywhere. We still have Google.

Google's European headquarters are in Dublin, where they employ more than 1,500 people. The other day Google Ireland posted its accounts for 2009 and the results can only be described as tremendous. Revenues, profits and employment were all up last year.

Not only did the number of employees rise, but so did the average salary, up from €64,000 ($85,000) to €72,000 ($96,000). And that doesn't include the stock options that the staff received, which totaled €17m ($22.7m). All of this at a time when hundreds of thousands have been laid off, and just about everyone else has had to take pay cuts.

Google is a great story for Ireland, but there are those within and without who don't see it that way. Google like all companies operating here pay the corporate tax rate of 12.5% on their Irish earnings, which is a great enticement for them to stay here, but to some that rate of tax is too low.

Fortunately nearly everyone in Ireland supports this tax policy and other than a few cranky newspaper columnists nobody wants to increase the corporate tax rate. Irish people understand the footloose nature of business and employment in this globalized age and they believe we need to do all we can to keep Google - and all the other high-earning, high-paying employers from America and elsewhere - from going elsewhere.

No, the real threat to the corporate tax rate is external. There are those among our EU "partners" who would love to see us forced to change that tax rate to something more palatable to them, something around 30-35%, which would erode the only crumb of competitive advantage we have as an underpopulated, difficult-to-get-to island nation.

These people, who seem to be either French or German, see Ireland's difficulty as their opportunity to turn the screws even more. We're on our knees and, it's true, we're getting help from the big boys to stave off default, but the price some people want us to pay is too great. It would mean penury in perpetuity.

It's too high a price. We need to hold onto Google (& others) more than we need to stave off default and that means keeping our corporate tax rate LOW.

Harland & Wolff still at the cutting edge

Harland & Wolff is a name you will certainly know if you're an aficionado of the Titanic story. However, even if you are only familiar with Belfast you will recognize the two massive yellow cranes that loom over the Harland & Wolff shipyard.

I was in Belfast a few years ago and drove over to East Belfast to see what the Harland & Wolff site looked like. 'Desolate wasteland' sums up pretty much what I saw as I stared through the rusted iron gates. Broken glass, broken concrete, broken dreams were all that was visible.

However, on a later visit I toured the site and two things struck me. First, that although it's a modern day ruin, the dry dock where the Titanic was built is still there as is the building where the plans for the great ship were first drawn.

It didn't take me long to realize that the site had great potential as a tourist attraction. I'm not the only one – there are plans to transform the area from a derelict site into one that tourists will flock to. Whether it's all going to be ready for the 2012 100th anniversary of the Titanic's maiden (& only) voyage is hard to say.

The second thing that caught my eye was a strange red tower just off to the side of the yellow cranes. I knew that H & W were still doing some shipbuilding or repairs, but I knew it was nothing like the old days. However, this red tower was not a ship, but a wave power generator.

As I learned, H & W have diversified into ocean based renewable energy engineering projects. Wave power generators are only part of the project because H & W are also building wind turbines and in July they won a contract to build a tidal turbine, which will produce electricity from the tidal flows.

Harland & Wolff is at the cutting edge of 21st century technology, just as it was at the cutting edge of 20th century technology at the time of the Titanic.

Hidbin - a reminder of Celtic Tiger stupidity

Yesterday I received a newsletter from our garbage company that contained a small item about a new product they were offering for sale: a hidbin. The hidbin is basically a fake bush front & top for your garbage can.

Later on, each time the image of the hidbin popped into my head I chuckled to myself. Were there really people out there who were so embarrassed by the fact that they had a garbage can (in Ireland, your "bin" is your trash can, so hidden bin or hidbin. See?) that they felt they needed to pay $128 (€99) to surround it in fake, plastic bush leaves?

Today when I thought about it again I thought to myself, well, back before 2007, during the Celtic Tiger years, lots of people would probably have bought hidbins. To my mind this is just the kind of silly item that people were prepared to pay for during those days when the nation took leave of its senses.

When I first came to Ireland I used to get a lot of good-natured ribbing from people here about some of the things Americans would spend money on. When they spoke of dishwashers and clothes dryers - things that were only then becoming the norm in Ireland - they were clearly speaking about items that they'd love to own themselves.

However, I remember in the mid-90s listening to a woman on the radio here talking about her daughter who was in America as if the daughter was now a member of an alien species. Her daughter had been waxing lyrical to her Irish mother (in her mid to late 50s, I guessed) about her bread-maker and how she couldn't live without it.

The woman explained how she'd reminded her daughter that she had taught her how to make bread when she was 7 or 8 years old and what possible need could there be for her to own a bread-maker now? Each time she said the word bread-maker her tone conveyed equal amounts of scorn and disbelief, as if only a fool wool would spend money on such a thing.

Yet, not long after that interview I saw bread-makers for sale here. To be honest I don't really have much of a problem with bread-makers, although I'm pretty certain families can survive without them seeing as my wife and I have never owned one.

I guess the hidbin is to me what the bread-maker was to that woman 15 or so years ago - a complete waste of money, something you can easily live without. If this were 2005 or so I'd feel the same way, but I'd also be pretty sure that hidbin would be a winner with homeowners because, well, everything seemed to be a winner with them then. Back then Irish homeowners spent money on all sorts of ridiculour things and I see no reason to assume a hidbin would not have been a 'must have'.

Today, however, I'm not so sure, although I imagine that some people will buy one.

Believe me I'm not knocking the people behind the company because I admire entrepreneurs. If they can sell these things and make a profit and a successful business for themselves, I'll tip my cap to them. However, that won't stop me laughing at anyone whose trash can I see surrounded by a plastic bush.

Irishman may have solved baseball's broken bat problem

An underemployed Irish roofing contractor believes he may have the answer to a problem that is plaguing Major League Baseball. Flan Marsh of County Clare is hoping that a treatment he developed for hurleys, ash sticks used in the Irish game of hurling, can be adapted for baseball bats and help rid Major League Baseball of the scourge of broken bats.

Over the last decade or so MLB has seen a significant rise in broken bats and injuries related to those bats. Stories about fans being injured by flying pieces of bats - like the boy hit in the head by a broken bat in Milwaukee during the early part of this season - have become all too common. Players and umpires are also at risk from broken bats.

Marsh developed his treatment for hurleys because of his concerns for the safety of those who play hurling. Hurling is more like lacrosse, with lots of close contact clashes with opponents. These clashes often lead to broken hurleys where the hurley breaks in two with knife-like sharp ends flying amidst the players.

Marsh's hurleys will still break, although breaks are less common. However, when one of his hurleys breaks the two pieces stay together {see photo above} - no sharp missiles are launched.

I think Major League Baseball might well jump at Marsh's development, so long as it doesn't affect the flight of the ball. That will be the real test. The last thing the baseball authorities want is media and fan complaints that the bats are "juiced", although given the pitchers' dominance this year they might secretly cheer a bit more offense.

Something that would save them the bad press and even lawsuits from broken bats flying into the stands would probably sound enticing.

I hope Marsh's approach to MLB works out for him. It's a great story. However, even if MLB turns him down he may well be onto a winner with youth and high school baseball leagues. Many of those have recently banned (the repugnant) aluminum bats because of fears that the metal bats hit the ball too hard. Pitchers can't respond fast enough to protect themselves.

Metal bats have been legally banned for youth leagues in New York and North Dakota. Many other youth leagues have imposed their own similar bans. Metal bats are increasingly being replaced by wooden ones.

One of the worries about a return to wooden bats is cost: metal bats are cheaper because they need to be replaced far less frequently. If Marsh's treatment can solve the problems caused by metal bats, but also make the wooden bat less breakable he could help tip the balance in the direction of wood over metal. He may just be the right man, with the right idea at the right time.



{picture of broken bat in crowd from AP-Charles Krupa}

Major League Baseball defaces Ireland's national flag

I'm not sure if you noticed or not, but baseball's spring training got going the other day. That means a new baseball season is only a few weeks away, thank goodness.

However, before we get to Opening Day St.Patrick's Day will be here. And, as is the custom now, that means Major League Baseball will be promoting its special St. Patrick's Day line of merchandise. You can get a green version of pretty much every team's cap and tee shirt, if you like.

Obviously there's a demand for such products, which I think is great. The die-hard baseball fan can satisfy their need to display where their baseball loyalties lie, but also exhibit their pride in their Irish heritage. I have a few green Mets shirts myself.

Yesterday I got my annual e-mail from the Mets asking me to "gear up and go green" for St. Patrick's Day. Loads of the usual green caps, green tee shirts, shamrock covered boxer shorts. Who doesn't need some of that?

What struck me, however, was that included among the green caps and shirts and boxers was an Irish flag. Only this Irish flag has "New York Mets" printed on it along with the Mets logo in the middle of the flag on a green shamrock background. And the real kicker, there's an MLB trademark stamp in the lower left corner.

First of all, I want to ask Major League Baseball who owns the green, white and orange flag that you've stamped your trademark on? MLB is not shy about demanding that others respect their logos and symbols. Mostly, however, I want to ask MLB who gave you the right to deface the national flag of Ireland?

I couldn't find any similarly defaced American flags on MLB's web site probably because MLB is fully aware that to do so is a violation of the flag code of the United States. Title 4, Chapter 1 § 8 of the United States Flag Code stipulates that "No disrespect should be shown to the flag of the United States of America."

The flag code further specifies that the "flag should never have placed upon it, nor on any part of it, nor attached to it any mark, insignia, letter, word, figure, design, picture, or drawing of any nature." Furthermore, the flag code says the "flag should never be used for advertising purposes in any manner whatsoever." I think that's pretty clear and fully explains why you don't see the Mets' logo or MLB trademark stamped on Old Glory.

If the American flag is deserving of such respect then so is the Irish flag. The Irish Government's Guidelines for the use of the National Flag are less detailed, but pretty straight-forward. "The National Flag should never be defaced by placing slogans, logos, lettering or pictures of any kind on it, for example at sporting events." {Note the Irish government's boldface.}

I know there are many people in both America and Ireland who think nothing of violating their country's flag code, but MLB should be not be following suit. And, lest you think it's only the Mets whose logo can be found on the Irish flag, similar versions exist with logos of the Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs and others.

Interestingly, one team that doesn't have an Irish flag with their team's name and logo on it is the Philadelphia Phillies. They have a special St. Patrick's Day flag, but it's not the national flag of Ireland.

Maybe being the home of the American flag makes Philadelphia more conscious of the respect that a national flag should receive or maybe someone in the Phillies' organization recognized what was right and wrong here. Either way, I grudgingly have to tip my green, shamrock-covered Mets cap to the hated Phillies.

Disney World's message to Ireland: don't come here

Disney World is operating a 'No Irish Welcome' policy. Or so it seems. Okay, it's not that serious, but it was brought to my attention last week that Disney's web site has omitted Ireland.

Yup, that's right. When you use Disney's web site to buy tickets to visit Disney World in Florida you're asked what country you are from and, well, Ireland's not on the list. Canada is there. The United Kingdom is there. Germany is there. Israel is there. Guatemala is there. Iceland is there. Kuwait is there. And so on.

Just about any country you could imagine is on the list, but not Ireland. To be absolutely certain I checked for Rep. of Ireland, as it's known on many European web sites, and I even checked for Eire, which I've seen on a couple of sites. But Ireland is nowhere.

I could get all emotional about it and wail about the insult to the Irish nation by virtue of this omission. Or I could speak of my deep sadness that a company founded by a man who was proud of his Irish roots could deny his ancestral homeland it's right to nationhood.

I could do that, but that would be a grotesque exaggeration of how I feel about this because I'm really curious about how this could have happened and not angry or saddened. {Although, when you combine this with the snub of Ireland at Epcot, well ...}

I don't know how many people go from here to Disney World each year, but it's not an insignificant number. I'd be pretty confident that more Irish people go to Disney World than do Icelandic or Kuwaiti people. In fact, I suspect that Ireland sends a disproportionate number to Disney in Florida when compared with other EU states and, I'd bet, more than quite a few countries on the list.

That's why I'm curious. How did Ireland get left off the list since, from my own experience in web site development, these lists are pretty standard? And how is it nobody at Disney has noticed or been notified of this because I'm sure many people in Ireland must have come across this already.

It's really only a minor issue, but still it's one that I bet Walt Disney would not be happy to learn of. Walt's grandparents - Kepple Disney and Mary Richardson were both Irish immigrants. The name Disney was originally d'Isigny, which is a Norman name, and his family at some point found its way to the area around Counties Carlow and Kilkenny, from where Kepple left Ireland.

Walt visited Ireland many times and his affection for Ireland was what drove him to make "Darby O'Gill and the Little People," which Irish Times columnist Fintan O'Toole says is much misunderstood in Ireland.

Disney's nephew Roy, who twice ran the Disney Corporation, also loved Ireland. Roy used to come to Ireland regularly and bought Coolmain Castle in County Cork in the early 1980's.

Maybe I've misunderstood the Disney web site and this is a tribute to the Disneys' Irish ancestry. Irish people probably don't need to buy tickets to Disney World because it's free for everyone coming from Ireland. If that's it, then great. I'd like my free family passes please.

UPDATE Jan 25: Disney's web site has been corrected to include Ireland. Again, I was pretty sure it was only an oversight, but I was curious as to how such a thing could happen and go unnoticed because so many people from Ireland go to Orlando.

Thank you to PatrickLee whose comment below "brought to my attention" the fact that the web site had been fixed.

Barry O'Callaghan - from billionaire to employee in two years

"River Deep Mountain High," sang Tina Turner. It must be a song weighing heavily on the mind of Irishman Barry O'Callaghan, head of the publishing giant Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Yesterday O'Callaghan declared that the company's investors are "under water", sunk by a mountain of debt. Quite a blow for the man who two years ago was labeled as Ireland's youngest billionaire by the Sunday Times thanks to the value put on his share of the publishing company.

In fact, O'Callaghan's company was originally called Riverdeep, but in 2006 he ditched the name when he bought a new name along with one of America's largest educational publishers, Boston-based Houghton Mifflin. He followed that highly leveraged acquisition with another, this time grabbing Orlando-based schoolbooks publisher Harcourt. The two deals combined left the company owing $6.7bn, which has now proved to be too great a weight.

O'Callaghan has always come across as the clever boy. He floated Riverdeep on the NASDAQ back in March 2000, just before the dot com bubble burst. Two years later he arranged for management (including himself) to buy it back after the share price tanked.

He spent a few years restructuring Riverdeep until the company was ready for the reverse takeover of Houghton Mifflin in 2006. In 2007 he moved the the company's corporate home from Ireland to the Cayman Islands, to take advantage of the Cayman Islands "greater flexibility" in distribution money to shareholders. He was able to raise hundreds of millions from investors, most of whom are Irish, who trusted in O'Callaghan and his vision for the educational publishing industry.

It was in April of 2008 that the Sunday Times ranked Barry O'Callaghan as the 7th richest man in Ireland. At the time O'Callaghan owned 47% of his new publishing group. A year later things had taken a turn for the worse. O'Callaghan dropped to 21st richest in Ireland and was no longer a billionaire. Moody's and Standard & Poor put health warnings on his company's debt as the credit crunch began to bite hard.

Yesterday's announcement wasn't surprising, but it probably sounded like a death knell to all those investors who trusted in O'Callaghan and have now lost their shirts. O'Callaghan says that he himself has lost more than anyone.

So, O'Callaghan is down, but not quite out. The company's not going out of business, but restructuring again. Those who are owed billions will be the new owners and, wait for it, and O'Callaghan will stay on at the helm.

The chief bond holder is hedge fund manager John Paulson and he led the push for this deal. Paulson says he has "great admiration" for O'Callaghan. So O'Callaghan lives to fight on - for now, although as a paid employee rather than as the owner/manager.