Trump is bad for Ireland... but great for one Irishman
COMMENTATORS were puzzled by Dublin-based public affairs consultant Karl Brophy’s appearance at the presidential inauguration in Washington last Friday. The Trumps were desperately seeking performers but Brophy is not an entertainer even if he has a keen sense of the ridiculous.
Last month, Brophy’s company, Red Flag Consulting, won a case in the High Court taken by billionaire Denis O’Brien; it has since been appealed.
I can reveal that he was a special guest of the Republican Party, with whom he has been building relations over the past two years.
He attended the inauguration with his wife Deirdre Grant surrounded by his Republican friends.
Brophy has been a regular visitor to Washington, meeting clients and establishing his business in the US capital.
After the presidential election and sweeping Republican wins in the US Senate, Brophy’s relationship with the party is already paying dividends.
Through the election campaign, Donald Trump and the Republican Party were very critical of Mr O’Brien’s relationship with former President Bill Clinton and the Clinton Foundation.
Any analysis of the US election and of politics in Europe and Britain should worry political leaders here. After the electorates in Britain and America showed widespread hostility to the establishment and elites, most commentators expected voters to swing to the left but they turned instead massively to populists and nationalists.
First there was Brexit, then Trump. Now Geert Wilders is topping the polls in Holland, centreleft prime minister Matteo Renzi has had to resign in Italy; rightwing populist governments lead Hungary and Poland. And then there is a serious threat of the National Front winning in France.
Which Irish political party is equipped to benefit from populist nationalism running rampant in the rest of the world? IN 1996, the Karl Brophy mentioned above couriered the printing plates for the historic edition of the Sunday World that showed Sammy Wilson, now the DUP Finance Minister, frolicking naked in the woods with his then girlfriend.
Two years later at the opening of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Martin McGuinness, right, winked and said to Wilson: ‘Great to see you today with all of your clothes on.’ Wilson was not amused but everyone else fell around laughing. McGuinness has great reserves of emotional intelligence and genuine warmth; his stepping down leaves a huge hole at the heart of Sinn Féin. IS IT just me, or do others squirm at the prospect of Sinn Féin trousering the bulk of the salaries of its elected representatives?
I believe that this means a Sinn Féin TD’s first loyalty is to the party rather than the taxpayers who pay them, the voters who elect them – or the State they have sworn to serve.
Last week Sinn Féin increased the portion of the salary that its elected representatives could keep by by €2,500 – from €37,000 (the average industrial wage) to €39,500.
The State pays each TD €87,258, the party will pay them €39,500. So what, I wonder, will happen to the €47,758 balance?
No, it will not benefit the homeless or poor in Ireland, or the starving of the Third World; the party says the €47,758 from each of its elected representatives it is used to hire additional staff or open additional offices.
And the party does not have to explain how it spends its money.
TDs can spend their wages as they please, whether they choose to give money to charity, their family or a political party.
But in 2015 the Sinn Féin party received €2.2m from taxpayers in the Republic and €1.6m from British taxpayers plus a further €327,000 from supporters in the US. That’s quite a war chest. NOBODY who matters among the tax-exile elite (Irish division) turned up at Switzerland’s creche for exclusivity and privilege in Davos last week.
China’s President Xi Jinping, pictured, the British prime minister and many of the 1% of the 1% of the world’s wealthiest appeared. And so did Enda Kenny, Michael Noonan and a team from the IDA.
But the high-flying Irish who used to helicopter through the ski slopes stayed at home when the prim Swiss village began to look like a themed hotel on the Las Vegas strip.
In the week of Trump’s inauguration and full frontal Brexit, Davos became passé, even vulgar, like an ageing starlet showing too much cleavage in church at Requiem Mass.
Each of the delegates spent around €29,000 for the three-day bash but you can be sure the bills will be designated as legitimate business expenses, ultimately paid for by the 99.9% of taxpayers.
Marinating in its self-importance and past glories, Davos ignored the irony of a Chinese communist making a pitch for global free trade. It may not have been a glimpse into a post-capitalist future but the cast in Davos made the discreet Swiss village look like a glitzy casino in a particularly bad Bond film.
An Irish friend attending was concerned that the absence of tax-exile Irish might dampen the spirit of Davos and was then further depressed on hearing that even journalist David McWilliams stayed away.
Yet like the US cavalry coming over the hill in a John Wayne movie, a large contingent of Irish civil servants and Industrial Development Authority flunkies arrived in Davos to spread spontaneous bonhomie – as if it were a snowed-in Irish pub.