Corporate watchdog chief insists it is not the ‘Irish FBI’

Ian Drennan, the chief executive at the Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA), has no desire to be known as Ireland’s answer to James Comey or Robert Mueller, let alone J Edgar Hoover. So I deduce from the State’s corporate watchdog slapping down with surprising vigour a suggestion that the CEA is Ireland’s FBI.

It started on social media (where else?) after a host of the Law on Trial podcast promoted an interview with Michael Dillon, a director of legal at the CEA. In a post on LinkedIn, she said Dillon would discuss his work with the “so-called ‘Irish FBI’, as well as his prior roles, which included being deputy attorney general in the Turks and Caicos”.

In a surprising intervention, Drennan responded that since the FBI’s remit extends to counter-intelligence, as well as investigating terrorism, murder and cybercrime, “I’m not aware that anyone has ever described the CEA as the ‘Irish FBI’”.

He added that with about 60 staff, and a mandate to promote compliance with company law, while taking action against noncompliance, a comparison with the FBI “would probably be a bit of a stretch, not to mention come as news to An Garda Síochána and our Defence Forces”.

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Catherine Sanz, the podcast host, replied that the first person to make the comparison with the Feds was actually Leo Varadkar, as enterprise minister. In 2021, he’d described the CEA as “an Irish FBI….[for] white-collar crime”.

[ ‘Irish FBI for white collar crime’ to be established in coming weeks ]

Back came Drennan again, arguing that an “Irish FBI... [for] white collar crime” and an “Irish FBI” are “two very different propositions”.

All highly entertaining, but soon afterwards the entire thread was deleted from LinkedIn. And we presume Drennan went back to catching the bad guys.

Corcoran lands new social media role after Ryanair exit

No more tweets about baggage allowances or window seats for Michael Corcoran, who departed as head of social and creative content at Ryanair on Wednesday after three months’ gardening leave. Corcoran revolutionised the airline’s social media strategy, with cheeky and bolshie posts winning a huge following on Instagram and TikTok in particular, once earning 111 million organic impressions in a month. As a Washington Post headline put it: “Europe’s largest airline is a troll on social media – and it’s working.”

After a turbulent end to his time at Ryanair, we asked Corcoran where he might land next. “I have been humbled over the last few months by all the businesses and people who have reached out, wanting to work or curious to see what I was going to do,” he tells me.

“What I have decided is to set up a social-media consultancy. I am partnering up with Dave Connor and Niamh Haughey, who are the founders of Frank and Bear, a small, independent agency based in Ireland. My consultancy, which will be a separate business, will be called Frankly. The idea is that the two businesses will grow each other over time.”

Corcoran says he already has 12 months’ worth of partners signed up, including a major Irish retailer and a utilities company in the UK, and is in talks with a low-cost airline, among others.

Though he has “zero regrets” about leaving Ryanair, Corcoran does look back at his time there with a little disappointment, as “we were building something really good there”. He concludes: “I did my best to try to change the culture and improve it.”

McKay to steer Go-Ahead’s bus journey in Dublin

Privatising some of Dublin’s bus routes was long proposed as a way of solving some of the capital’s transport problems. And then it happened – five years ago 24 routes were taken from Dublin Bus and given to a new company, Go-Ahead Ireland, a subsidiary of the UK’s Go-Ahead Group. It has been quite a bumpy journey since, however, with the company having huge problems hiring enough drivers.

Last year the operator was fined €3.05 million by the National Transport Authority in performance penalties, with Go-Ahead putting the blame on staff shortages. The fine almost wiped out its net profit, €3.1 million, for 2021.

So we can only wish bon voyage to Dervla McKay, previously of Aircoach, who has taken over the wheel as managing director of Go-Ahead Ireland. The company now runs 30 routes, including five Dublin commuter routes, and says its fleet of 225 buses plus 760 staff serves 14 million passengers a year.

Perhaps the main challenge for McKay, a Donegal native, will be steering Go-Ahead through the BusConnects network redesign. The company says work is already under way expanding its Ballymount depot by 50 per cent in order to get ready for the new routes that are to be added. Just one of many speed bumps that lie ahead.

Irish activity on X largely the same since Musk takeover

One of my favourite memes on X is posted when someone grandiosely declares they are quitting the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter. “This is not an airport,” they are told. “You don’t have to announce your departure.”

Despite many such announcements being made since Elon Musk bought the platform a year ago, the level of Irish activity on X is still about the same, according to Stephen O’Leary, CEO of Olytico, a social media analytics company.

“There has been a minor decrease in the amount of original content published,” he says. “But that has been offset by an increase in resharing content. So people are still there, but their activity has changed.”

[ How Elon Musk changed Twitter’s Dublin operation: ‘He broke the culture in a week’ ]

O’Leary agrees that there may be fewer users, and the reason we haven’t seen a big decrease in Irish posts to X is that there’s a higher level of activity from new accounts. Which means the arrivals are even louder than the departures.

Tech executives seek planning approval for canopy at stately Wicklow home

Apple’s already extensive links to Ireland deepened a couple of years back when two of its former executives – Guy “Bud” Tribble and Susan Barnes – bought a stately home in Co Wicklow for over €2 million. The pair left Apple in 1985 alongside Steve Jobs to set up NeXT. Following disagreements with Jobs, Tribble joined Microsoft in 1992, only to rejoin Apple as VP of software technology a decade later. Barnes eventually became chief financial officer of Intuitive Surgical, a clinical robotics manufacturer.

Their Wicklow abode, Glanmore Estate in Ashford, was once home to the playwright John Millington Synge. The 389 sq m Glanmore Hall was also briefly rented by the actress Julia Roberts while she was filming in Ireland. The new owners recently filed a planning application to erect a glass-roofed, open-sided, decorative wrought-iron sculpted canopy for the entrance.

“The canopy provides weatherproofing for the owners entering their home, and protection for an additional stone sculpture, which will be located under the glass roofs,” their architects say in the application to Wicklow County Council. “It also frames the view from the house of the surrounding agricultural and marine landscape.”

The canopy, it is promised, would be fabricated by Edward Bisgood, “one of Ireland’s most celebrated metal craftsmen”.