A glance at the week that was
We now know
British chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne has announced a £1 billion cut to child benefit in the UK.
Californian retail giant Forever 21 is to create 250 jobs in Dublin, with the opening of its first European store, on Jervis Street, next month.
The US government stopped its scientists warning the public of possible worst-case scenarios arising from the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Faster Glasto
Glastonbury 2011 has sold out nine months in advance, defying the popular view that recession has adversely affected all concert-ticket sales.
Despite the fact that no acts have been announced, the prestigious UK festival sold all 137,500 tickets for next year’s event – from June 22nd to 26th – in just a few hours.
In 2010, neither Oxegen nor Electric Picnic sold out, unlike previous years, but Glastonbury has, at least for now, proven immune to the woes of the music industry.
€4,000:The price sought by an elderly man in Derry for his four-year-old pet zebra, bought 18 months ago, which he can no longer afford to keep
"I remember saying, whenever Moss goes on a run, he was liable to go anywhere, but just get after him because the crowd would really get behind you."Ireland captain Ciarán Fitzgerald, the Irish captain on the Triple Crown-winning team of 1982, on the rugby legend Moss Keane, who died on Tuesday following a lengthy battle with cancer, aged 62
€124,000:The figure payable by a bank and a Co Galway couple to a "highly vulnerable" elderly woman, unduly influenced into giving the bulk of her life savings to the couple
€1.85 billion:The current Government deficit between public spending and tax revenue, expected to be tackled in the upcoming Budget through tax increases
Google ogle
A website using images acquired from Google Street View has been awarding accolades to areas in Ireland in somewhat unusual categories – including the “shittiest housing estate” for a development in the midlands that has been captured with a significant amount of refuse in various front gardens.
Streetviewireland.tumblr.com is also selecting photographs that have captured our citizens engaged in somewhat unorthodox activities, including running along the side of the road pushing a wheelie bin and relieving themselves in public places. Whatever would George Orwell say?
Give me a crash course in... Paddy McKillen
THE COURT CASEPaddy "don't call me a developer" McKillen has been in the news this week because of his High Court legal action against Nama and the State, in which he is trying to stop the transfer of €2.1 billion of his loans to the agency, saying it is unconstitutional and would do "drastic" damage to his business.
He says Nama didn't take into account certain facts, such as that his loans are performing, that they are not for land or development, and that his portfolio is geographically diverse.
He's particularly protective of the crown jewels in his portfolio: his stake in the hotel group that owns upmarket London hotels Claridge's, the Connaught and the Berkeley.
He says he didn't participate in the Celtic Tiger property frenzy and hasn't purchased any Irish assets since 1998. His companies instead invested in world-class retail centres and other quality assets.
WHAT NAMA IS SAYINGThat a €37 million loan, and a further €3 million interest "roll-up" loan, made to him to buy shares in Anglo in the golden-circle transaction, are classed as "impaired". Nama says he isn't entitled to any special treatment to prevent his loans being transferred to it.
THE OUTCOME?If the developer wins his case, Nama could be derailed.
THE MANPaddy McKillen's bulging portfolio of trophy properties screams "look at me", but in person he's softly spoken and so low-key that the only photograph in circulation of him is a grainy black-and-white one of him looking young and dapper in a dickie bow. Those who know the Belfast-born investor, who is now in his mid-50s, say he's actually a casual dresser who could be mistaken for one of the workmen on his developments. He rose through the ranks of his family business, DC Exhausts, but later branched out in spectacular style, forming a series of business partnerships. He's still friends with John Rocha, with whom he ran a clothing business in the 1980s, but some later alliances were less harmonious.
Relations between McKillen and Johnny Ronan – with whom he was involved in developing the Temple Bar Hotel, Treasury Buildings (ironically, where Nama is based) and the Pepper Canister office complex, all in Dublin – are believed to be cool, although this has been denied. His high-flying partnership with the solicitor Ivor Fitzpatrick made them both multimillionaires but ended in acrimony in the High Court in 2008.
Quiet he may be, but he likes to be in control. Legend has it that when he and business partner Pádraig Drayne were developing the Jervis Centre in Dublin in the early 1990s he kept an eye on progress through the night; Drayne did the day shift.
McKillen is known for his philanthropy, although his business partner Johnny Ronan has been told by Nama to stop making charity donations from a company they co-own in a bid to maximise the amount of money it recovers on the loans it acquired. McKillen has a big house on Torquay Road in Foxrock but spends a lot of his time in London and Los Angeles, where his wife, the former model Maura McMenamin, and some of his children live.
He has a dizzying array of business interests in Ireland, the UK, France and Vietnam, valued at between €1.7 billion and €2.8 billion. An acquaintance of McKillen's, and one of the so-called Anglo Irish Ten, expresses a view held by many who know the maverick investor: how could someone so smart have got involved to that extent with Anglo?
YOU MAY NOT KNOWHis sister is the fashion designer Maireád Whisker.
Edel Morgan
