The Bailey brothers were never the world’s most diligent book-keepers. In the final reckoning of the Charlie Haughey era, however, Mick and Tom have inadvertently provided a singularly telling entry in the political balance sheet.
Through Bovale Ltd, their construction company, the Roscommon-born brothers have agreed a tax settlement of €25m with the Revenue Commissioners, the largest in the history of the state.
Since Haughey’s death, commentators have searched for a dramatic image that encapsulates the culture nurtured by the former taoiseach and his henchmen. With impeccable timing comes the admission by two of the country’s wealthiest Fianna Fail supporters that they have been systematically defrauding the Irish people.
Of course, the Baileys’ venality has been common knowledge for years, thanks to revelations at the planning tribunals. Mick, for instance, features prominently in the annals of notorious political quotations for his reported response to fellow construction executive James Gogarty who wondered if they’d get a receipt for the IR£30,000 bribe they paid in 1989 to Ray Burke, then minister for communications, to secure a land rezoning in north Dublin. “Will we f***!” said Bailey.
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In his September 2002 report, Justice Fergus Flood said that both brothers had obstructed the tribunal by giving false testimony. Two years later, their application to have their legal fees paid by the taxpayer was rejected. An audit of Bovale revealed that a “true and fair” view of the company’s accounts is currently impossible as the Baileys may yet face an enormous bill for the tribunal’s costs.
Despite their disgrace, however, the brothers continue to flourish, and are among the construction industry’s highest earners. Contrary to the guff we heard last week about seismic changes in Fianna Fail since Haughey’s tenure as leader, they also remain cherished friends of the party.
Both are annual fixtures in the Fianna Fail tent at the Galway races, where Mick is often joined by party bigwigs in a raucous chorus of The West’s Awake. During the 2002 election, Mick joined the campaign team for a Fianna Fail candidate in Roscommon and was prominent among the party’s cheerleaders at the Dublin count centre.
Hand over cash or your hair gets it
Irish women are being scalped by their hairdressers. Consumer watchdogs say hair salon prices have risen by one third in five years, outstripping all other businesses.
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When it comes to high-street robbery, apparently, it’s now more lucrative to hold a hair-dryer than a gun to people’s heads.
Hairdressers themselves blame the price hikes on property and staffing costs. But there’s also been a growth in so-called celebrity hair-stylists, offering increasingly flamboyant and expensive dos.
What Irish hairdressing needs is a return to its, er, roots.
And nobody is better placed to grab the industry by the short and curlies than Frank Fahey, the junior justice minister and property tycoon with a hitherto-hidden flair for the art of trichology.
Having initially denied any involvement in an upmarket Moscow hairdressing salon in the mid-1990s, the Brylcreem-ed Fianna Fail deputy now concedes that he was an adviser to the company — on the fringes, so to speak. Only a truly gifted image stylist would dare indulge in such ostentatious hair-splitting.