{"id":40974,"date":"2025-09-24T16:51:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/40974\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T16:51:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T16:51:14","slug":"kenny-jacobs-took-on-the-blob-and-lost-but-legacy-of-daa-battle-will-tell-another-story-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/40974\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenny Jacobs took on the Blob and lost, but legacy of DAA battle will tell another story \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is tempting to portray the protracted exit of Kenny Jacobs<\/a>, the chief executive of DAA<\/a>, as an example of a hard-charging private sector executive who took on the Blob and lost. <\/p>\n

First popularised by the Conservative politician Michael Gove, the Blob is a sort of shorthand for vested interests co-operating to resist change. <\/p>\n

In Gove\u2019s case, it was the coalition of unions and politicians that opposed his efforts to reform the UK education system during the 2010 to 2015 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. In Jacobs\u2019 case, the Blob is Fingal County Council<\/a> and the Department of Transport<\/a><\/p>\n

The narrative goes as follows: The proximate reason for the breakdown in Jacobs\u2019 relationship with the board of the State-owned airport operator was the handling of two protected disclosure complaints against him, described as matters relating to dignity in the workplace. These were not upheld after being examined by an outside party. <\/p>\n

The ultimate reason, however, was the combative approach he adopted in his dealings with Fingal County Council over the cap on passenger numbers at Dublin Airport. His elbows-out approach \u2013 which recently saw Minister for Transport Darragh O\u2019Brien<\/a> bounced into announcing that he would do away with the cap \u2013 was not to the liking of senior civil servants in the Department of Transport and elsewhere. <\/p>\n

Generally speaking, senior civil servants are not keen on State company chief executives \u2013 with the backing of their board \u2013 who effectively ignore regulations and get embroiled in a legal dispute with another arm of the State that eventually drags in the Minister and forces the Government\u2019s hand. <\/p>\n

It may all look like some sort of Machiavellian scheme instigated by Jacobs. The truth is probably a bit more prosaic. But what is hard to dispute is that Jacobs\u2019 nimble footwork seems to have overcome the sort of institutional inertia \u2013 aka the Blob \u2013 that increasingly blights economic progress in this country. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s the sort of coup that would be celebrated in the private sector but is viewed with deep concern by the civil servants who endeavour to keep State companies within their purview on a tight leash. One reason they do this is to ensure ministers are not wrong-footed in the way O\u2019Brien appears to have been. <\/p>\n

They must have realised that anyone who prospered under Michael O\u2019Leary \u2013 the combative Ryanair chief \u2013 was no shrinking violet<\/p>\n

Given the strength of local opposition to the noise and the other downsides of the ever-expanding Dublin Airport, ending the cap may cost votes in north Dublin. The temptation to kick the can down the road was considerable but it was no longer an option after Jacobs put the DAA and Fingal on a collision course. <\/p>\n

We may never know how much of Jacobs\u2019 denouement was a consequence of his so-called \u201ctake-no-s**t\u201d attitude in dealings with Fingal over the cap and other issues. But, as reported in this paper last week, we do know it grated with senior Department of Transport officials. <\/p>\n

The extent to which the mandarins on Merrion Street can directly influence the board of a State company is debatable, but they do speak for the Minister who is the shareholder. <\/p>\n

If Jacobs\u2019 abrasive style was even partly the reason for the board losing confidence in him, it raises the question as to why they hired him in the first place. Equally puzzling is why Jacobs took the job in late 2022.<\/p>\n

The latter question is easier to answer. Jacobs needed a job, having left Ryanair in mid-2020 after he lost out in the competition to be chief executive of Ryanair Designated Activity Company, the largest of four individual airlines that make up the Ryanair Group. <\/p>\n

DAA may have thought they were getting a poacher-turned-gamekeeper, but at the same time they must have realised that anyone who prospered under Michael O\u2019Leary \u2013 the combative Ryanair chief \u2013 was no shrinking violet.<\/p>\n

Both sides knew what they were getting into. Jacobs, as a senior Ryanair executive, could not have been unaware of the culture of Irish State-owned companies such as DAA and their relationship with the senior civil servants who oversee them. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Kenny Jacobs and the DAA: How chief executive who \u2018shook things up\u2019 ran out of runwayOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The DAA board, for its part, may have been attracted to the idea of a chief executive who would shake things up in this regard. If that was the case, they got what they wanted and more. Too much, if you subscribe to the views that the ousting of Jacobs was the revenge of the Blob.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Brien and Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers must now both sign<\/a> off on a \u20ac1 million severance deal<\/a> that has been agreed with Jacobs, who has another four years left on his contract.<\/p>\n

It is a lot of money. But some in the permanent government may consider it money well spent if it serves to remind Jacobs\u2019 successor and his peers in the other State companies who is the boss. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is tempting to portray the protracted exit of Kenny Jacobs, the chief executive of DAA, as an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40975,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,10725,25746,7941,11900,12845,61,60,12844],"class_list":["post-40974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-daa","tag-darragh-obrien","tag-department-of-transport","tag-dublin-airport","tag-fingal-county-council","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kenny-jacobs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40974","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=40974"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40974\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40975"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}