The dapper workaholic on the side of struggling borrowers
The covert Texan, the Imaginosity director and the golfing motivator
1 ROSS MAGUIRE
HE’S the trusted face and voice for thousands of struggling homeowners around the country. Dapper and wellspoken, Ross Maguire has been a masterful spokesman for New Beginning, which he founded with fellow barrister Vincent Martin and businessman David Hall. The idea burgeoned over coffee between the three barristers, sparking a lobby and advocacy organisation with the aim of providing legal representation to traumatised borrowers and taking on the banks.
Mr Maguire achieved one of New Beginning’s biggest victories when he noticed that a clause often used by lenders to repossess property had been left out of the new Land & Conveyancing Law Reform Act.
Maguire has been tipped by many to become a judge at some stage. He attended the all-boys secondary school De La Salle College in Churchtown, south Dublin, before Trinity College and Kings Inns, Dublin.
The barrister married Sarah O’Connell, who also now works as a junior barrister in New Beginning. They live in Rathgar and have four children, all of whom are still in primary school. Mr Maguire is on the board of management at his children’s school, John Scottus in prestigious Dublin 4. He has a reputation as a workaholic
2 JOHN McDANIEL
Nicknamed Texas, little is known about the mysterious John Lester McDaniel, the burley 64-year-old American who heads up the Arizun fund from an office beside the Dáil on Molesworth Street.
So little, in fact, that a remark he is said to have once made about a past involving the CIA has never quite been forgotten by some in New Beginning.
He is the sole owner of Arizun Services Ireland Ltd, the Irish company which represents a parent fund based in Malta.
Despite his top-level access to the departments of finance and environment, Mr McDaniel has virtually no public profile.
Even meetings with all the main banks two weeks ago in which his fund offered each of them €720m for 5,000 non-performing mortgages did not result in his identity – or his company’s – being made public.
He lists an address in Nenagh, Co. Tipperary but does not appear to own a property in his own name. He was a director of a local firm called Aisling Energy Efficient Homes Ltd between 2006 and 2008.
He has been a director of Limerick-based Aisling Financial Ireland Ltd since 2009. This company owns 10% of Arizun Services Ireland Ltd but has never posted any more than losses of a few thousand euro.
Mr McDaniel said he could not comment to deny or confirm past associations with the CIA or NAMA.
But he confirmed that his father, Dr John L McDaniel Snr, was director of the missile research, development and engineering laboratories of the US Army Missile Command, and technical director of the US Army Ballistic Missile Agency.
The only hint to Mr McDaniel’s international affairs are two dormant UK companies, Africa Finance Corporation Ltd and Claromundi Ltd.
3 RAY MURPHY
The 54 year old worked as an official with the Revenue Commissioners for 12 years. According to internal Arizun documents, he managed a €3bn worldwide property portfolio fund in the 2000s. He later set up Mespil Taxation. He is a director of medical firms at Dublin’s Beacon Hospital and of children’s museum Imaginosity. He joined the Arizun Fund in January this year.
4 DIARMUID McAULIFFE
An old friend of Ross Maguire since their school days, the 46 year old was a leasing executive with AIB and KBC and is now responsible for finance and leasing at Ray Murphy’s Mespil Taxation.
A specialist in medical equipment finance, he is also a director of the Educate Through Sport Foundation and is involved with First Tee of Ireland, which focuses on personal development through the game of golf.
He set up Asset Finance & Mortgage Co. Ltd in 2002 and worked with finance firms such as BCK Wealth Management before joining Mespil.