Mary Lou’s inquisitor is a banker who drives ‘a clapped-out’ Merc
The ‘concerned citizen’ who publicly confronted Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald on Friday about her party’s tax policy set up the Irish subsidiary of a firm which manages investment funds worth billions of euro.
But Sinn Féin have hit back at the self-styled ‘small business owner’ who interrupted their deputy leader on Grafton Street on Friday – by claiming he was a ‘top banker’. Fergus Crawford, who spoke in the middle of a scrum of journalists after he interrupted Ms McDonald, dismissed the claims made by Sinn Féin, saying he drove a ‘clappedout’ Mercedes. As well as a Mercedes, a 151-registered Range Rover was also at the house.
Speaking at his home in Castleknock, the director of Sarasin Funds Management (Ireland) Limited told the Mail On Sunday that he had a discussion with Mary Lou McDonald ‘as a person with a vote (and) not as an employer or anything like that’.
Mr Crawford said he was ‘expressing a view’ on behalf of his family and he could have been a doctor, an accountant or any professional.
He rubbished claims made online about him by Sinn Féin supporters. saying, ‘I drive a clapped-out Mercedes’. He said Sinn Féin wanted to tax people earning €20,000 at 20% and pension contributions would be taxable under the party ‘even under small amounts’.
The confrontation between Mary Lou and Mr Crawford occurred on Grafton Street on Friday while Ms McDonald was speaking to journalists. He repeatedly declined to identify himself other than to say he was a ‘concerned citizen’ and a ‘small business owner’. Sarasin Funds Management (Ireland) Limited is the Irish subsidiary of a Swiss Investment Firm which specialises in ‘global thematic investment funds, based onshore and offshore’. At the end of 2012, Sarasin & Partners managed £12.4bn (€16bn) worth of funds.
Mr Crawford interrupted Ms McDonald when she began to talk about the party’s tax policy for higher earners (third tax band).
He said Sinn Féin was going to ‘strip the poor people of this country; middle-income people’. Ms McDonald insisted her party would not, to which Mr Crawford said: ‘My children don’t want to aspire to €69,000-a-year, where you bring in this USC. I think it’s appalling.’
He told Ms McDonald that Sinn Féin wanted to ‘punish’ people ‘who work hard and try to make a life for themselves here’.
When Ms McDonald said the vast majority of workers in Ireland would never earn more than €69,000 per annum, Mr Crawford said: ‘they should aspire to it Mary Lou, and you should be telling them that there are opportunities there. You shouldn’t be taxing them out of existence’.Mr Crawford said he was ‘apolitical’ but ‘probably will be voting Fine Gael’.
Meanwhile, a teenager gave Labour leader Joan Burton a piece of his mind in Kilkenny yesterday afternoon. A video was posted online which shows the Tánaiste stopping to speak to the young man. She can be heard explaining how the budget favoured families with children and lone parents. When she has finished talking, she turns and briskly walks away.
The boy was obviously not happy with her explanation and angrily shouts that she should shove her water charges ‘up her fiscal space’. ‘My father is working class and he’s struggling to pay his rent.
‘Yeah run from your problems like you always do,’ he said.
‘Sinn Féin wants to punish hard-workers’