{"id":134122,"date":"2025-11-11T14:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-11T14:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/134122\/"},"modified":"2025-11-11T14:37:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T14:37:10","slug":"irelands-graduates-entitled-and-tax-regime-digital-colonialism-denis-obrien-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/134122\/","title":{"rendered":"Ireland\u2019s graduates \u2018entitled\u2019 and tax regime \u2018digital colonialism\u2019 \u2013 Denis O\u2019Brien \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Businessman Denis O\u2019Brien<\/a> has described graduates emerging from Ireland\u2019s colleges as \u201centitled\u201d and referred to the State\u2019s corporate tax regime as \u201cdigital colonialism\u201d in a broad-ranging speech on Tuesday on the challenges facing the country. <\/p>\n

The entrepreneur, whose interests span telecoms to golf resorts, criticised the \u201clack of joined-up thinking\u201d as the Republic grapples with infrastructure shortfalls in electricity, water and housing, and spoke of a \u201ctwo-speed Ireland\u201d as the private sector \u201cgets things done\u201d as the public sector stalls. <\/p>\n

The country\u2019s planning laws are \u201cseverely holding back the country\u201d, as big projects are affected by judicial reviews and long delays, he said in a 45-minute speech at a conference organised by the Business Post in Dublin. While the Government is currently progressing a blueprint to curtail judicial reviews of planning decisions, the businessman said urgency is required. <\/p>\n

\u201cIn Ireland, we need to reform all parts of the Government and its administration,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe also need to plan for the next economic downturn, which, I believe, is likely to be soon. We just cannot ignore what\u2019s happening in the wider world. We now need the combination of political leadership, accountability, a radical sense of urgency, and external expertise.\u201d <\/p>\n

Irish citizens\u2019 work ethic is in decline and graduates \u201chave become entitled\u201d, dictating in a lot of job interviews when they would be available to work in the office, he said. He said workplace policies are being led by \u201cweak\u201d human resources people \u201cwho also want to work from home\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0John Collison of Stripe: Ireland is going backwards. Here\u2019s how to get it movingOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system is mostly being gamed,\u201d he said. \u201cNearly every CEO (chief executive) of FDI (foreign direct investment) companies or Irish businesses that I speak to these days says that we have a big problem, which, should it continue, will greatly impact Ireland\u2019s FDI and reputation as a hard-working country.\u201d <\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Brien also took aim at State being \u201ccomplicit in facilitating global tax avoidance\u201d by big US technology giants as they book revenues and profits here on sales taking place elsewhere, including poor African countries. <\/p>\n

\"\"Will Imagine\u2019s big gamble double its customer base?<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is perfectly legal and within OECD rules,\u201d he said, referring to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. \u201cBut the question is: is it acceptable? It is modern day digital colonialism.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said the system is contributing to \u201cgross inequality\u201d and \u201cthe main reason why African immigrants take huge risks in dinghies to reach rich European countries\u201d. <\/p>\n

But while he noted that tech giants having data centres in Ireland are part of the system and something needs to be done to address tax-collection concerns, he insisted that the Republic needs to become a European leader in data centres. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0EU set to water down landmark AI Act after pressure from big techOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cAI (artificial intelligence) is driving an avalanche in demand for data centres,\u201d he said. \u201cWithout a national data centre strategy, we are cutting off future AI investments. Data centres will be a huge driver of FDI and key to our digital services economy.\u201d <\/p>\n

He noted that there are more than 10 data centres waiting to be connected to the electricity grid, and more awaiting connection to the gas network. <\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Brien said the Government should ask big Irish companies to make specialist senior managers available for secondment to help oversee big projects. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe lack of housing is the biggest impediment to our competitiveness and our society,\u201d he said. \u201cWe will not be able to grow our economy if people don\u2019t have places to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr O\u2019Brien said that if Ireland is to develop a new wave of big indigenous companies, entrepreneurs need access to a tax-efficient \u201cequity release scheme\u201d to take money off the table at a relatively early stage.<\/p>\n

He said the current prevalence of Irish entrepreneurs \u201cselling out to foreign buyers for \u20ac50 million-\u20ac100 million, and not going the whole hog to become a \u20ac1 billion company\u201d, will continue if this is not addressed. <\/p>\n

\u201cI can see no reason why in this country we cannot develop 15 to 20 unicorns, of $1 billion-plus (\u20ac860 million) value, in the next 10 years if growth capital were available,\u201d he said. \u201cThese companies would go some way to offset the dependency on our very valuable FDI sector.\u201d <\/p>\n

Most of Mr O\u2019Brien\u2019s wealth stems from netting more than \u20ac200 million from the sale of Esat Telecom, which he founded, to BT Group in 2000 and going on to set up Digicel in Jamaica the following year. <\/p>\n

He extracted at least $1.9 billion of dividends from Digicel between 2007 and 2015. While a big debt restructuring saw the businessman cede 90 per cent of Digicel to a group of bondholders in January 2024, his holding could rise to 20 per cent if certain performance conditions are met. <\/p>\n

His remaining big assets include engineering services company Actavo (formerly known as Siteserv), the Quinta do Lago golf resort in the Algarve in Portugal, the Camiral golf resort in northern Spain, and a collection of other real-estate interests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Businessman Denis O\u2019Brien has described graduates emerging from Ireland\u2019s colleges as \u201centitled\u201d and referred to the State\u2019s corporate…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7517,78088,113,1523,42,43,2549,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-134122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-denis-obrien","9":"tag-digicel","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-planning-permission","15":"tag-top-news","16":"tag-top-stories","17":"tag-topnews","18":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}