Order of the Vole: Ronan Tynan

Dermot Desmond, a businessman of the most revolting kind (tax exile, brash, selfish capitalist, asset-stripper, financial conjuror: exactly the breed who sunk Ireland's economy) has proposed a 'global university of the arts' to revive Ireland's fortunes.

All well and good you might think. However, The Kerrywoman has sent me a letter from the Irish Times which nails Desmond's twisting duplicity (and that of the political class which encouraged these chisellers) perfectly:

Madam, – Dermot Desmond, when making his proposal for “a global university of culture and the arts” suggests that the unique Irish spirit is “undefeatable”; and while I agree with the latter, I regret he did not add if we all put our shoulder to the wheel (Front page, December 5th).

In case Mr Desmond, as one of the country’s leading tax exiles, has not noticed, we already have a number of potentially world-class cultural institutions, and they all share one thing in common – they have sustained, and are about to sustain further brutal cutbacks in State funds because of the collapse in tax revenue. The best thing he could do at the moment if he wants Ireland to reach its full potential in this area is to start paying tax like the rest of us.

Indeed, what was even more depressing about his proposal is that it reminds us that we live in a country where paying tax for the super rich is optional, with the first of the 163 published names he wrote to being Bono and U2, who also, coincidentally, moved the core of their empire out of Ireland to reduce their tax bills.

But should anyone have the right to become an “exile” in their own country for tax purposes? More to the point, with our country virtually bankrupt, does any member of the super rich have a right to hold an Irish passport if their families are living here, and they are claiming to be “exiles” for tax purposes, when they are in the papers more frequently than their peers, who are paying tax?

Surely the culture that makes such anti-social behaviour possible has contributed massively to the horrendous financial mess we find ourselves in at the moment? In the budget, the Minister for Finance must address this scandal. – Yours, etc,

RONAN TYNAN,

Blackrock,

Co Dublin.

Ronan Tynan: you sir, are The Plashing Vole's Hero of the Week.