Mick Galwey thought about it for a few seconds, considered the weather and the injuries and told Dunne in no uncertain terms that Munster would win. Dunne took out his mobile phone, hit the speed dial and asked a well-known financial figure to place a bet of €50,000 on Munster to win.
Job done they took their seats with a number of other property developers with whom Galwey has gone into business, and enjoyed the game. Afterwards they discussed some properties the former rugby player is developing in Waterford. Dunne agreed to buy one of them, a holiday home, for about €250,000.
Munster won, he had a new holiday home and won the €50,000 bet. Good day all round. Home to Gayle.
In many ways this typifies Dunne. He’s almost a cartoon character, a tabloid exaggeration of himself in that he is bold, brash and daring, maybe even a little overbearing. At times he’s gruff and aggressive, but always intriguing. You just know he’d love to be in the chair should an Irish television version of The Apprentice ever materialise.
The business community is still divided on his hugely ambitious plans for developing the old Jury’s and Berkeley Court sites in Ballsbridge, for which he paid roughly €55m an acre. Some of his fellow property developers (competitors, it must be said) have gone on record describing the price as “off the wall” and “ludicrous”. They argue he can’t possibly turn a decent profit. We’ll see.
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Dunne is an instinct man in the Sir Richard Branson “screw-it-let’s-do-it” mould. But like Branson he has the ability to combine instinct with an extraordinary grasp of detail. His press handlers like to put out the line that Dunne’s a “big picture” person.
This week the man Bertie Ahern calls Dunner was in a South African shanty town joining 350 other Irish volunteers on Niall Mellon’s Township Challenge, building 50 houses in a week for poor families.
Dunne, sweating it out in khaki shirt, shorts and boots, must have been reminded of his early days working on building sites in London. Then he was a quantity surveyor, now he’s on the way to becoming a billionaire; albeit a heavily borrowed one. It’s been some time since he wore a hard hat. Apart from when he reads the Sunday papers, that is.
Many rural readers who had never heard of him were bemused to see two Sunday papers — Ireland on Sunday and the Sunday Independent — devote rainforests of pages to a spat between the developer and a former business colleague. Depending on which you read, Dunne was tapping into the telephone messages of former business colleagues or he was the victim of a bizarre Fatal Attraction-type situation involving a former female business colleague so overcome with lust for the corpulent Carlow man that she set about destroying his marriage to Gayle Killilea.
To secure Dunne she allegedly hired a buxom eastern European woman in tight jeans and low-cut red top to entice him. She was even supposed to be planning to get rid of Killilea before having plastic surgery to make Dunne fall in love with her.
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There was a similar air of unreality to Dunne’s pontifications from South Africa, where the sight of so many poor, smiling black people inspired him to muse: “It proves you don’t need the riches of the world to be happy.” Funny how it’s always rich people who say that.
In true Dunne fashion, he couldn’t leave well enough alone and added: “If people came out here they might stop being serial objectors to progress.”
This, presumably, was a less-than-subtle dig at those who would object to his less-than-subtle plans for Ballsbridge. Dunne wants to create a new city within a city on the Jury’s site. It will comprise a 32-storey apartment tower (further Donald Trump envy?), four 11-storey towers, two glass pyramids, an ice-skating rink and a jazz club on a site for which he paid €270m. Oh, and just in case there’s any confusion about it, he has said that, while he will provide 20% social housing provision, it will not be on that site.
It’s surprising that he treats social housing provisions so lightly, yet regularly invokes legal protections in his many spats with business colleagues. He’s fallen out with so many people over deals that he’s almost a guest member of the High Court. Mrs Dunne — “truly gorgeous” (Sunday Independent), “a former society girl and gossip columnist” (Ireland on Sunday) — is a qualified barrister, so they presumably spend half their time discussing briefs over the expansive kitchen table in Shrewsbury Road.
Other items of discussion include Gayle’s cooking. As followers of a recent court case will know, Sean the billionaire turned up at the High Court carrying Tupperware containing a lunch Gayle had packed specially. A “friend” was helpfully on hand to tell the ever-supportive Sunday Independent: “Sean is very partial to Gayle’s cooking. He doesn’t believe he could get better anywhere in the city.”
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All this domestic goddess routine couldn’t have come at a better time for the Dunnes, especially when their marriage was the subject of scurrilous allegations and attacks. It hardly needs such spin, as it genuinely appears to be solid as a rock. The couple have one child and Killilea, 31, is expecting another.
They met at the Fianna Fail hospitality tent at the Galway races in 2002 and were married in Thailand after a whirlwind romance. Three months later they held a party in Italy and brought friends and family on board Aristotle Onassis’s former yacht, Christina. The taoiseach was invited, but couldn’t make it. Instead he rang the couple to convey his best wishes. Charlie McCreevy, the European commissioner, was also on hand to reinforce the government’s support. Dunne, 51, is as Fianna Fail as funerals. Dinner parties in his home have in the past had half the cabinet in attendance.
While steadfastly loyal to Fianna Fail, he has fallen out with all and sundry. As well as alienating his former wife, Jennifer Coyle (it was claimed he hired a private detective to spy on her when she became involved with another man following the break-up, an allegation he strenuously denies), he has also committed social hara-kiri with his neighbours on Shrewsbury Road. Some of these have had the audacity to fall into the aforementioned category of people whom Dunne would describe as “ serial objectors to progress”.
Refurbishments he carried out to his home were the subject of two High Court challenges, one involving his neighbour and founder of the Black Tie chain, Niall O’Farrell. Still, Dunner can probably afford his own tux now.
The Shrewsbury residents are also up in arms over proposals to develop Walford, across the road from Dunne. Dublin’s most expensive house is owned by a trust, the ultimate beneficial owner of which remains a mystery. The Sunday Business Post recently said it was Dunne, but he denies this. Neighbours remain suspicious that he is involved in the development.
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Still, as Dunne sets out from the refurbished Georgian splendour of his Merrion Row headquarters for his annual Christmas dinner in the Unicorn — he books the entire restaurant — one can presume he’s not bothered.
The child of working-class parents in Carlow, he is self-made. Educated by the Patrician Brothers in Tullow, he later attended Bolton Street college before finishing his education with a BSc in construction economics in Trinity College.
He emigrated to London in 1985 and returned to Ireland in 1990, aged 35, having made enough money to fund his first property investment. With the help of contacts made through Lansdowne rugby club, he got backing for his first deal, the IR£14m purchase of land in Booterstown. He had made his first killing. Typically, he later fell out with his business partners.
From there it was one daring development after another, stretching his reach from Rathfarnham to Cape Town. His empire will not be complete, however, until his crusade to transform Ballsbridge has been achieved.
When he lodges his planning application for the Jury’s site next March, expect a battle royal. Dunne will be back in his bailiwick, far from the shanty towns of South Africa, dolled up in cufflinks and Armani suit, a packed lunch under his arm, ready to fight to the death with all those serial objectors to progress.