A recent report by the think tank TASC called “Mapping the Golden Circle” lifts the curtain on the networks the ruling class uses to ensure it controls society.

The report shows that Ireland is run by a small pool of well-connected people sitting on the boards of Ireland’s top companies

The report focuses in on the networks around the 40 biggest Irish companies. More than four out of five (80 per cent) of the top 40 companies were directly linked through their board members.

At the centre of this network are the boards of directors of the four main banks – Anglo, AIB, Bank of Ireland and Irish Life and Permanent. Only four companies out of the 40 top companies did not have a director sitting on the board of one of the four main banks.

The report goes a long way to explain why FF and Cowen were so insistent on saving Anglo-Irish and the other banks – some of the most powerful people in the ruling class (and major supporters of FF) sat on their boards.

The report shows that there were 39 particularly well connected individuals. The report authors call these people the ‘Director Network’. These 39 super-wealthy people held more than 93 of the most powerful directorships between them in the Celtic Tiger years; as well as an average of ten directorships each in other companies!

For example, Sean FitzPatrick sat on five of the top 33 boards – Anglo, Aer Lingus, Dublin Docklands Development Authority, Smurfit and Greencore.

There was a golden circle within the Golden circle – eleven people who were particularly well-connected. Over half of them held board positions in at least one of Ireland’s four largest financial institutions. Their names are: Sean Fitzpatrick, Kieran McGowan, Bernard Somers, Anne Heraty, Gary McCann, Declan McCourt, Philip Lynch, Gary Kennedy and Ned Sullivan.

These people worked the system to their own benefit, gambled billions and now expect us to pay for their mess.

The research also found that the ‘old boys network’ is alive and well, only one in nine directors was a woman.

The report also shows that this wealthy elite treated the state as their private piggy bank. Interlocking directorships connect seven of the 14 State-owned bodies to 12 of the 26 private companies. One in four of the Director Network simultaneously sat on the boards of both 43State-owned and private companies.

For example Sean FitzPatrick was a member of the DDDA and was also a Government appointee to the Board of Aer Lingus. The CEO of the Financial Regulator’s office was appointed on his retirement to the board of Irish Life and Permanent. This revolving door between public and private underpinned and ensured the ‘light touch regulation’ of the Irish state.

Stratospheric pay

Between 2005-2007 CEOs pay in both private companies and State-owned bodies increased by more than 40 per cent on average, while inflation was at 9.1 per cent for both years combined.

In 2007, board chairpersons of private companies were paid an average of €267,600 per position, that meant the average level of pay for CEOs in private companies was €1.6 million. This is equal to 136 times the poverty income threshold. CEO pay does not include pension payments and stock options.

Non-executive positions averaged €312,646 for each well-connected director and do not include benefits such as share options, loans, or earnings from other management roles or directorships.

Non-executive directors are part-time position that might involve 40 working days a year, or possibly much less.

During the same period over one in six households had a low income that made them ‘at risk of poverty’. More than one household in sixteen (6.3 per cent) was in consistent poverty.

This same bunch of people are still in charge – they moved around like a game of musical chairs when they spotlight was on them, but the same names are still on the boards of the top companies.

They have successfully nationalised their losses through NAMA and the bank bailouts, while keeping hold of their ill gotten wealth. We have to end this dictatorship of a tiny super-rich elite.

We’re lucky in Ireland, it’s a small place and will take little effort to round these people up and take their wealth off them.