FARRELL’S DECADES AS A POLITICAL PLAYER
AS a political player and lobbyist for decades, Pat Farrell has attended some fascinating and controversial dinners.
As general secretary of Fianna Fáil in 1994, he was present at a late night meal in Cork at which 12 businessmen made substantial donations totalling IR£150,000.
Long before funding concerns were to emerge in Irish politics – and at a time when Bertie Ahern was party treasurer – the event saw developer Owen O’Callaghan provide then Taoiseach Albert Reynolds with IR£50,000 for FF.
Reynolds would later appoint Mr Farrell as a senator at the end of an Oireachtas term for a grand total of one sitting day. Known largely for his role as Irish Banking Federation
(IBF) chief during the Celtic Tiger years, Mr Farrell’s most ill-timed dinner is the 2008 farewell for the Chairman of the Financial Regulator, Brian Patterson.
Dubbed the banker’s ‘last supper’ when the hush-hush event was unearthed by the press, the evening was attended by a flock of boom-time bankers.
‘Well, it probably wasn’t the best decision I ever made,’ he said when quizzed by the Oireachtas Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis. As IBF chief, it was Mr Farrell who, at the behest of the banks, lobbied the Government for the banking guarantees that crippled a generation and paved the way for today’s housing crisis.
Afterwards, he took up a position as head of Communications and Government Relations at Bank of Ireland until 2019.
Now, as Irish Institutional Property chief, he is the chief lobbyist for the cuckoo fund industry at a time when they are poised to become the most serious property players and landlords the State has ever seen.