Cancelled golf event means ‘€60m loss’

Up to 100 charity and voluntary organisations are bracing themselves for a €60m hit after confirmation that the JP McManus Invitational Pro-Am will not take place in 2015.

Since its inception in 1990, the charity golf event, which is held every five years, has raised in the region of €100m, which has been used to fund dozens of projects in the Mid-West and north Cork.

The two-day tournament is one of the biggest charity golf events in the world, attracting an A-list of celebrities and sports stars, including Tiger Woods and Hollywood stars Michael Douglas, Samuel L Jackson, and Hugh Grant.

However, there are growing fears there may not be another one, with Mr McManus’s tax status being the major stumbling block.

Under tax residency laws Mr McManus, who will be 64 in March and who has a business in Geneva, must spend fewer than 183 days in Ireland. He said in an interview with the Limerick Leader last November that a change in the tax exile rules made things more difficult for him and he was not able to spend as much time in Ireland as he needed.

He said the change meant that an overnight at his home in Martinstown now counts for two days in this country.

The first golf classic, at Limerick Golf Club, in 1990 raised €1.2m. The most recent one, at Adare Manor golf resort in 2010, raised €43m. Charity sources said they were estimating the windfall from the 2015 event could have been up to €60m.

Charities, while expressing their disappointment, have been loud in praise of Mr McManus.

Una Anderson Ryan of the Mid-West Parkinson Association said: “We have got services here in this region which no other part of the country has due to money we got from Mr McManus. While we are disappointed with the news it would be selfish to expect Mr McManus to keep on working at this level for all our benefit.

“We got a first allocation which enabled [us] to employ a full-time specialist nurse and this service was then taken over by the HSE. From the last golf classic we got €2m and it was initially planned to put this towards the building of a hydrotherapy pool. This did not get off the ground as the HSE made things too difficult.

“However, the €2m has now been put into the building of a specialist neurological unit at Limerick University Hospital which will open next October and the JP McManus money is also helping us send six nurses to England to undergo specialist training.”

The chairman of Limerick County Council, John Sheahan, said the tax exile rules on residency should be revisited by the Government.

“It is a shame that people like JP have to live in exile, successful entrepreneurs who contribute so much in the amount of people they employ directly and indirectly in this country, all paying taxes,” he said.

“Many racehorse trainers in this country, employing hundreds would be forced out of business, but for the horses owned by JP McManus which they train.”