O’Dea is paid enough not to need to make money from social housing

‘O’Dea to cash in on social housing’ was a headline on one last Sunday’s papers reporting on a broadcast that Mr Wiile O’Dea gave to a group of investors of behalf of a company called Foundation Group .

The Foundation Group seems to be a company concentrating on property management and development, Mr O’Dea is the non-executive chairman with a holding of some 2 million shares and is joined by another ex-minister, Mr Batt O’Keeffe on the board. His broadcast highlighted the business opportunities open to Foundation through the provision of social housing and other investments that the government will be giving incentives to provide in this ‘democracy’ of ours.

In the webcast interview Mr O’Dea waxed lyrical on how ‘cash rich’ the Foundation is and that they are in a ‘strong position’ to take advantage of the extremely fast growing Irish economy, with exports growing strongly and our financials in a pretty good position, completely ignoring the fact that the national debt is somewhat north of €200 billion, for which both he and Mr O’Keeffe have some shared responsibility as high profile members of the last Fianna Fail administration. Mr O’Dea, as well as being a TD is also a barrister and accountant and writes a column in a major national paper and combined with his 2 miilion shares has investments in minerals and oil, so surely his other statement of ‘ in this world everybody has to make a few bob, you know’, rings a bit hollow. After 30 plus years in a well-paid and well expensed ‘job’ of TD/Minister at the expense of the taxpayer and looking forward to an extremely high pension, Mr O’Dea cannot want for anything else?

One has to wonder what the leader of the Fianna Fail party will make of all this? Surely Mr Martin will have concerns relating to ethics, conflicts of interest and above all, Fianna Fail’s deep seated desire to once and for all the bury the sleazy innuendos which have persisted since the Haughey/Ahern eras. I can now well understand the various calls one sees on social media for a revolution here in Ireland when young people perceive that the people who are elected to serve the national interestes appear to be self-serving to say the least. Our democracy is not well served by having the same politicians continuously being re-elected as familiarity breeds contempt, with the creation of political dynasties and the smugness that ensues. Perhaps, it’s time to bring in a statute that forbids incumbent TDs from running after two terms in office, thus opening up the country to new ideas and more progressive action on major issues.

Denis Moloney,

Tinkers Hill,

Kilnagurteen,

Macroom.