Independent News Bosses Rolling in Cash

national | anti-capitalism | news report Saturday May 13, 2006 00:52 by Millie R.

A snapshot at the fortunes of Ireland's top capitalist. Tony O'Reilly isn't going to be running out of money anytime soon.

When the Minister of Finance lectures workers on getting pay increases in line with inflation it’s always worth having a look to see what sections of the capitalist class are getting. Do they practice the pay restraint they preach? Last year the bosses of the Independent News & Media received hundreds of thousands each – not including money received in dividends from after-tax profits of €229 million.

INM Executive Directors’ Pay
Tony O’Reilly: €1,467,000
DJ Buggy: €892,000
VC Crowley: €1,1444,000
IG Fallon: €1,110,000
GK O’Reilly: €1,271,000

There are also sixteen Non-Executive directors who attend a maximum of eight board dozen meetings or so a year and get paid in the region of €25,000 per annum. However seven of them received over €30,000 in addition to the basic €25,000. Margaret Jay, daughter of former British Prime Minister James Callaghan, and Ivor Kenny, author of perhaps the most tedious books in the history of Ireland (on leadership, business etc), are two members of the board. Quite a contrast between €50,000 a year for working a few days a year with working five days a week for a fraction of that.

One of the more amusing details of O’Reilly’s review of the year is his obvious pride in the “quality” of the English Independent. No doubt because he sees it as capturing what the company stands for: “editorial independence, objectivity, excellence” – they are rolling out a new brand to get this message across.

If nothing else one can be amused with such twaddle. Compare the devotion to objectivity and excellence to: http://www.indymedia.ie/article/75645 Obviously, picking fantasy and vitriolic Sindo stories is like shooting fish in a barrel but it will no doubt continue to churn the garbage as O’Reilly’s pride in good journalism takes a back seat to increasing profits.

To be fair, the top capitalists need a large income because they have lots of expenses. For instance O’Reilly has houses in Leeson Park, Fitzwilliam Square (perhaps two in each), a mansion in Kildare and four houses which he has consolidated into a closed compound in Glandore, a tiny seaside village in West Cork. No doubt he has many more in the USA, the Caribbean etc. He frequents Glandore rarely, every couple of years for a couple of weeks. It does mean that any locals looking to buy a house are (a) stuck for choice because most houses are bought by the rich as holiday homes so there’s few on the market anyway and (b) as a result the price of an average house is beyond the reach of an ordinary worker. Margaret Jay also has a grand house on the seashore of Glandore worth millions which is also rarely used.

Workers at Independent News & Media, many of whom will spend their entire lives paying for a house, would have to work a few centuries to make the wealth that together have created for O’Reilly. And it’s worth bearing in mind that the Independent Group is only one part of O’Reilly’s business empire, so he’s gaining from the labour of tens of thousands right across the globe. It’s no wonder that he thanks them for their efforts in 2005 – they are making him obscenely rich.

Independent News & Media’s 2005 Annual Report:
http://www.inmplc.com/annualreport05/annualreport2005.pdf

O’Reilly’s page at Forbes’ List of World’s Richest People:
http://www.forbes.com/finance/lists/10/2004/LIR.jhtml?p...erson

The obvious solution to the O’Reillys of the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-syndicalism