A newly formed language school is advertising Brian Cowen as its chairman in promotional material aimed at the Chinese market — even though the school’s founder denies the former taoiseach has been given that role.
In a flyer for Ulysses College, written in Mandarin and handed out at the Meitheal Irish travel and trade fair at the RDS last month, it was claimed the school’s “chairman” is Brian Cowen, “the former Irish prime minister”.
The flyer named Frank Fahey, a former Fianna Fail TD and minister from Galway, and Phelim O’Neill, a solicitor and former Ogra Fianna Fail vice-chairman, as founders and directors of the school.
The English-language Ulysses College website, however, does not contain any mention of either Cowen or Fahey. The website says the school was established in 2014 and runs an English-language college, summer schools, “home stay programmes in Ireland’s leading high schools”, and an e-learning programme in partnership with DynEd, a US firm that creates language-learning applications.
Despite numerous language-school closures in recent years, following a Sunday Times investigation into irregularities in the sector, the English-language teaching market is still estimated to be worth €800m a year to the Irish economy.
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The Ulysses College name was registered with the Companies Registration Office last September by Academic Connect Ireland, a company incorporated at the same time. Academic Connect’s directors are listed as O’Neill, Ethelle Fahey — the wife of the former TD — and Brian Fahey, their son. Ethelle Fahey and O’Neill are the registered shareholders.
The school’s Dublin address is the law office of O’Neill’s firm. The school’s Galway office is in the business innovation centre of NUI Galway. Calls to the school’s phone number were not answered.
Lin Lin Wang, the school’s recruitment agent in China, said he did not know Brian Cowen as he worked with “Frank” — whose second name he did not know.
Frank Fahey responded to an email sent to the school’s account. “Ulysses College is a constituent body of Academic Ireland which was started by me, my family and Phelim O’Neill last year, with the objective of promoting Irish education abroad,” he said.
“It is in a start-up phase and does not have any courses running as yet. We hope to be in a position to sign a contract soon to commence our first summer programme this year.
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“Brian Cowen is on our advisory board with me and a number of academics. He is not the chairman of the school nor is he a director.”
Fahey added: “The people in China who put the document together made a mistake in describing Brian Cowen as chairman.”
He said the document had only been shown to a handful of people at the Meitheal trade show in the RDS. He also said the process of forming the college began in 2014.
Cowen led a trade mission to China while he was taoiseach in October 2008. His fellow minister Batt O’Keeffe was also on the mission, which focused on recruiting Chinese students to come to Irish universities.
O’Keeffe also made a foray into the language-school sector after Fianna Fail lost power in 2011 when he became president of Eden College, a school that closed down after irregularities were revealed by this newspaper.
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Since Cowen left office he has done a graduate business course in Stanford and set up his own consultancy firm. He was appointed a director of two firms associated with the billionaire Denis O’Brien: Topaz and the Beacon Hospital. He left the Topaz board after O’Brien sold the business.
It appears Cowen may be using his connections to help Fahey’s school. The Ulysses College website claims 15- to 18-year-old students will be able to attend one of three Irish secondary schools for up to 10 months: St Mary’s College Galway, Presentation College Athenry and Cistercian College Roscrea, Cowen’s alma mater.
The college claims to be able to offer English lessons in private kindergarten schools in China using an app developed by DynEd. That firm’s senior vice-president for Asia/Pacific is Ciaran Lally, an Irish executive who was chief executive of China HR, a recruitment company that was majority-owned by O’Brien until last year.
The Ulysses College website also claims to be able to offer courses that allow its graduates to qualify for entry into Irish universities and institutes of technology. It lists the emails of two staff of the Galway Technical Institute as points of contact.