The dogs in the street could have told you Matt Cooper had a book in him. Born in Cork, he was advised by a careers guidance teacher that there was no point in pursuing a career in journalism unless he had relations in the Irish Examiner. Cooper studied accountancy and marketing at UCC, then applied for a place on DCU’s Graduate Diploma in Journalism and upon graduation cut his teeth with the Sunday Business Post, then the Irish Independent, before moving to the Sunday Tribune, whose fortunes he was entrusted with reviving when he was appointed editor at the tender age of 30. In 2002 he stepped down in order to succeed Eamon Dunphy on Today FM’s The Last Word, and after a shaky start, and against all bookies’ odds, has managed to eclipse his predecessor’s ambition of exceeding RTÉ’s drivetime figures.

Now Cooper has just published his first book. Who Really Runs Ireland - The Story of the Elite Who Led Ireland From Bust to Boom... And Back Again, a complex but surprisingly reader-friendly trawl through the labyrinthine social, economic and political channels of Ireland’s boom and gloom years. Here is a cautionary tale of politicos and powermongers rubbing shoulders and exchanging secret handshakes at the Galway Races and Dublin 4 dinner parties, a tale of tax avoidance scams and offshore bank accounts, of property developers and construction moguls erecting Overlook hotels and ghost estates to avail of tax breaks, of back-scratching statesmen in thrall to billionaire newspaper moguls. Somewhere between Bonfire of the Vanities, Citizen Kane and Flann O’Brien, Who Really Runs Ireland? is a rattling – and frequently horrifying – read.

Peter Murphy: What was the compulsion to write this book?
Matt Cooper: Patricia Deevy and Michael McLoughlin at Penguin were very clear on what they wanted. They felt that in the last few years people have been letting it all slide by in relation to what was going on in business and politics. They said, “Try and pull it all together for people who perhaps now realise we should have been having a look at this and we weren’t. What happened? Who were the people responsible?” So that’s what I was trying to do, in as clear and lucid a style as possible, without getting too bogged down. The idea is to make it as clear as possible about what went on, who benefitted and who lost.
So, in a nutshell – where did it all go wrong?
One of the great disappointments has been that when we were getting our act together in this country at the end of the last century, we were making real things, technology, developing new products, health care, things that were helping improve the quality of life. But what happened in 2002? Property. Let’s build things, and get involved in this whole scam of making people borrow money to buy overvalued houses and apartments that were built on overvalued land, and we built this incredible bubble instead of building something real. In Dublin it’s hotels, around the country it’s all these empty housing estates out in the middle of fucking nowhere, all these ghost estates. The stupidity of it all and the obviousness that it couldn’t last, but everybody went along because they were making a few quid out of it. The regulators just sat back and let everything rip because they felt this was the political instruction they were getting. With the exception of a few people who’ve taken the rap, nearly all of the people who were powerful and influential during this period are still in place. They’re the ones who are supposed to be getting us out of this mess, having created it in the first place. Why should we have trust and faith in them?
Despite the objective, journalistic tone of the book, there’s a definite undercurrent of anger.
In the middle of 2008 I was very much on the verge of packing it in and sending the contract back and saying, “I can’t do this.” And in fairness my wife Aileen said, “Look, you’ve been talking about wanting to do a book for years: when an opportunity like this comes up you can’t just turn it away, because it might never come again.” The book was originally supposed to come out this time last year, and there was no chance of that, but when the whole world started blowing up last September I thought, “Jesus, this is the time to do it.” And that just sparked me. And I suppose there was a certain degree of anger at how everything was getting messed up and we were heading back to where we had come from, how we had blown this great opportunity to have a much more prosperous, fairer nation, and seeing everything coming off the rails. So that really energised me. And in February I sat down to write it.
How did you find the time, what with the Last Word schedule, journalism and the fact that you’re a married man with five kids?
I gave up drink for six months, getting up at six in the morning a couple of hours before I brought the kids to school, coming home in the evening and putting the kids to bed. It was Aileen who was having to suffer, watching television while I was off to work again. But I’m lucky in that I can write reasonably quickly. I lost a lot of sleep.
Giving up the booze seems like a crucial move if you want to get anything done.
It’s amazing what you can get done with a clear head. I’m not a heavy drinker or anything, I don’t even drink during the week, but I like to go out on a Friday or Saturday night and give it a lash or whatever. So it was a combination of guilt, feeling I was never quite right for the kids at the weekend, and wanting to have a clear head.
I’ve done it a few times over the last few years. It’s just the energy boost you get, not being tired. Some friends who’d give out to me said, “Ah, you’re no craic, you’re very dry,” and stuff like that. But I’m into my 40s, and you discover as you get older you can have fun without drinking. And it would be an awful thing to pass up on an opportunity to do something that might have some merit because you want to be able to go on the piss every weekend. I’m not giving out about anyone else, but just for me I became quite happy knocking the drink on the head for six months.
You wanted to make a comment about the lack of coverage the book has received from RTÉ .
RTÉ completely ignored it, with the exception of The Week In Politics programme last Sunday night, which did a review of all the books that are on the market, and they brought mine in. And in fairness the non-RTÉ guests were very complimentary. But Penguin Ireland went to RTÉ in September with copies of the book for various programmes in radio and television and offered me for interview. Every single one of them came back and said no. Penguin were very disappointed, completely taken aback. So I said, “Maybe they just don’t like it.” But then the reviews came out and it’s gotten really positive reviews in the newspapers.
Did the Sunday Independent review it? The relationship between Tony O’Reilly and Bertie Ahern came under some scrutiny in the book.
They’ve ignored it, and I guessed that they would. The Irish Independent in fairness gave it an excellent review, I couldn’t believe how positive they were about it. The Irish Times, the Tribune, the Irish Mail On Sunday, very positive reviews. But still nothing from RTÉ. So I started thinking, “There’s something going on here, I must be ostracised in some way,” and we did hear feedback that there had been some sort of instruction. Surely RTÉ can’t have decided as I’m so prominent on Today FM and TV3, that because I’m a prominent person on the main commercial rivals, that somehow overrides what’s in the book, when they can bring in guests from overseas, from ITV, which does compete with RTÉ?
You mention in the book that you suspected part of the reasoning behind your appointment as editor of the Tribune at such a young age was because you’d be more easily muzzled when it came to running stories critical of Tony O’Reilly.
I think in fairness at that stage I had developed a track record, I’d been Journalist of the Year and all that kind of stuff, I’d really built up the business section and made it readable and accessible for everybody, and I think they knew I had the talent to be an editor. But yeah, I think there probably would have been a feeling of, “He’s 30 years of age, he’d be very grateful to get the opportunity, and if he’s told to do certain things he’ll do them.” That was never said specifically to me, but I think that’s a realistic assumption to make!
Barstool conspiracy theorists have long muttered about the country being run by a Howya Illuminati of moguls and politicians at the Galway Races or private dinner parties in Ballsbridge. Your book suggests they’re right.
Well, I just tried to set down the facts and let people come to their own conclusions and make their own interpretations. Things that people did, associations and interactions that they had, money that they made, money that they lost. So yeah, I can see where... The composition of the elite might change in that you get new members who come through as wealth is accumulated, but the same structures remain. Brian Cowen quoted Lemass at length when he became leader of Fianna Fail, and Lemass was part of a generation that I think did have a genuine sense of vision for what they wanted. Haughey had a vision for himself. Bertie had a vision for his mates. But where is the vision for the betterment of the country? Ahern may not live a particularly grand lifestyle, but he’s very, very comfortable, and all his mates, the Sean Dunnes and the Bernard McNamaras and all that... This idea that Bertie was just the ordinary man that you’d have the pints with in Fagan’s, there was still a coterie there, the cronia.
It’s hard to believe that people in the highest levels of power, all the way up to the Taoiseach, claimed they operated without bank accounts or proper accounting systems right into the mid-’90s.
And the explanation that’s given by people is that: “Oh that was the culture of the time.”
I had a bank account in the early ‘90s, and I didn’t have two shillings to rub together.
See, the majority of the people do things by conventional structures, they try to get their money into their bank account, most people are honest. But you look at what I wrote in the book about AIB, that it facilitated tax evasion as part of the structural way the bank operated in the late ‘80s and 1990s. And politicians were caught up in this. Things like the Ansbacher scandal, politicians moving money to offshore accounts out of the reach of the taxman, not just Charlie Haughey, others were doing it as well, but we did have the Taoiseach of the country operating offshore bank accounts to evade tax. And yet, and yet, while Haughey is being buried, Bertie Ahern goes to his funeral and eulogises this man. Now what does that say about standards?
We could’ve used a dose of Thompson’s elegy for Nixon: “He was a crook.”
Even with Ahern’s political bereavement, when he stood down as Taoiseach, suddenly all the failings were cast aside for this month-long orgy of celebration of all Bertie Ahern was supposed to have done for us, rather than a clear-eyed, cold analysis. I suppose at the time we didn’t have full information about Bertie Ahern, and some people have excused Bertie on the basis that the scale is different, as if the principle doesn’t matter. Maybe the Irish people in general are at fault... Ben Dunne is treated as some sort of celebrity: “Ben’s great craic, sure didn’t he reinvent himself after the stuff in Florida.” This is the guy who gave two million quid to a serving Taoiseach, then there were also issues in relation to the tax status of the company that he owned, where he wanted Charlie Haughey to make representations to the Revenue Commissioners. Ben Dunne was castigated, excoriated, in the first Moriarty Tribunal Report, which looked into Charles Haughey’s finances. Has he ever faced any prosecutions in relation to that? Far from it. Instead he becomes a panel show member of a fucking programme on RTÉ television. What does that say about this country, how seriously we take things when they’re done wrong?
Never underestimate the PR cache of having gone off the rails.
I agree, and I covered it at the time after Florida, and after he was thrown out of Dunnes Stores, and I remember going up to his house in Castleknock and interviewing him, and he was contrite and all that. People appreciated and understood that he went off the rails as a result of the kidnapping and he had cocaine problems and alcohol problems, and he fronted up to them and dealt with them and that’s fair enough, he does deserve credit for that. But I’m talking about something separate. There’s this great Irish weakness for the great character. If someone is loud and opinionated, rather than looking at the substance behind what he is saying, or looking at his track record or performance, he can actually end up being some sort of celebrity.
Now you could level that criticism at Michael O’Leary. But Michael O’Leary actually has substance in what he’s actually achieved. I know he’s denigrated by many because of his way of talking and because he’s perceived to be anti-worker, but if you look at the record, Michael O’Leary is actually the biggest Irish success story in business in the last 20 years because he’s actually created something out of nothing. The idea that this peripheral island actually has one of the biggest airline carriers – and more importantly has actually made air travel accessible to the people. One of the great ironies is that when Aer Lingus was the only carrier out of Ireland, a state run organisation, you had to be rich to be afford to fly. Think of all emigration in the 1980s, we couldn’t afford to fly away, we had to get the fucking ferry.
O’Leary comes across in the book as too gauche to ever get accepted by the elite.
Some of that may be an act, but he has created something, even from the point of view of Irish people broadening their minds, going away six times a year, they’ve seen continental Europe in a way that was never available to them before. O’Leary is not necessarily the bad boy he’s painted. He’s not necessarily a hero either, there are things that are very objectionable in him. But it comes back to the point that at times we have this incredible deference in this country to wealth and to power. It’s like we celebrate people, these property developers, just because they’re wealthy, without asking how did they get wealthy, and what did their wealth actually create? Very little of that has actually been examined over the last decade or so, because all we were interested in was the trappings of the wealth. Any time you try to examine or be critical, you’re being accused of being a begrudger. The sensitivity of the rich and powerful is extraordinary, the solicitor’s letters I’ve received on occasion for daring to raise questions about people. It’s almost like the one thing they can’t purchase in a shop or borrow from a bank is esteem, how others see them.
In the book you referenced a statement made by Larry Mullen in a Sunday Independent interview, about the Irish having a negative attitude towards the rich.
That album (No Line On the Horizon) actually says thank you to the likes of Derek Quinlan, Johnny Ronan and all these various big property developers. Derek Quinlan is a fascinating case at the moment. He has decamped to Switzerland, he has left loads of debts in Ireland and Britain and other places. Now why do you go to Switzerland to live? How is the State going to recover the money that he owes to Anglo Irish Bank? He is one of the people that U2 thank, I know he’s co-investor with Edge in things out in California.
Bono would probably argue that hip-hop artists never get stick for being entrepreneurs, that someone like Jay Z is allowed to be a player, but if a white rock band does it they’re seen as sell-outs.
That’s the thing – nobody is denying Bono the right to be an entrepreneur or get involved in the investments that he does. In fairness to him – and I’ve written this in the past – I think he’s done extraordinary work in relation to the Third World and debt relief or whatever. The problem is you undermine your own credibility... If you go up on stage in Croke Park and start demanding that the Irish state pays more of its tax revenue to Third World development aid, that’s fine. But don’t then be part of a band which deliberately decides to move its business offshore to reduce its tax liability and then say this is part of what business is about. If U2 felt it necessary to go offshore, that’s their decision, but you can’t come back and start telling us, “Don’t begrudge us, we’re entrepreneurs.”
You were taught by Theo Dorgan, who at the Music Show in the RDS recently let loose a broadside against the McCarthy Review and the government’s attitude to the arts.
I wasn’t aware of that. Theo is a great guy, he was enormously helpful to me in college and helped me to learn how to write properly. In some respects, the tax exemption for artists is far from the worst of various exemptions because there’s a rationale behind it. And to get the first quarter of a million tax free in the year and then pay tax on the rest is more than fair.
If I were to breach the 250 grand mark on the back of a book or record or art exhibition in any given year, paying tax on the surplus would be the least of my worries.
So how much do you actually need and how much do you want? I would argue the cap is very generous. If your going to have this system to encourage artists, it should be a lot lower.
Rather than slashing support for local Arts Centres, drop the cap another hundred or even two hundred grand.
If you’re getting 250 grand free and you’re only paying 40% on the balance of that, that’s a good deal.
Let’s talk about your other job as presenter of The Last Word on Today FM. It was always going to be tough following Dunphy, and the figures took a dip after he left...
And now they’re higher than he ever got them to! I remember at the time I think Joe Jackson interviewed me for Hot Press, and he was all full of, “Are you not afraid of failing?” It was all about failure. And I thought, “This is an opportunity to do something else.” And in some respects it was good that the figures fell over the first couple of years, and they did fall quite sharply, but that then provided me with the opportunity to change the programme, to put my own shape and stamp on it.
Is it true Royston Brady took a shot at you during that period?
He did, yeah. Royston and myself laugh at this now, but it actually was a turning point, ‘cos it was May 2004, it was the time of the European Elections. I’d actually been out on paternity leave, one of my kids had been born that month. I came back, and one of the producers on the team had said we’d been interviewing all the European Parliament candidates, and the only one who wouldn’t do it was Royston. “Royston’s at this event today – go down to him and stick a microphone under his mouth and say, ‘C’mon, why won’t you come in?’” So I went down and Royston refused to do the interview: “I’m not talking to you, I’m not doing any more interviews. Sure who’d be listening to you? The figures are going through the floor!” So we broadcast that. And what we did at the end was we said, “Come on Royston, you’re a chicken!” and we played a chicken sound. And we got a phenomenal reaction to it, and that seemed a tipping point, it made us more confident, we played up Royston just slamming us, saying the figures were rubbish, and I think people actually appreciated that in a strange way. Royston’s actually a very nice fellow.
And that was the turning point in the show’s ratings?
That was it, because I think after that the confidence came back. And then the most important thing for us a couple of years ago was breaking through 200,000 listeners per day, no one ever thought that was possible. We had gone ahead of RTÉ drivetime. Dunphy’s aspiration had always been to beat RTE, and it was something he didn’t manage, and we did, and that was an affirmation for us, that we seemed to be getting things right. And I think what’s very important is belief that this idea that you have to make things tabloid or dumb them down is wrong. We have the best educated people in this country that we’ve ever had. You have to deal with big issues and give interviews time and space, and mix it in with entertainment and other things.
How on earth did it occur to you to get Jim Corr on the show to air his anti-Lisbon Treaty conspiracy theories?
I’ll tell you, it was Tony Fenton. He said, “Did you ever think of getting Jim Corr on? He’s got a really interesting view of the Lisbon Treaty, he’s been doing research on it.” And I said, “Well, we’ll record it and put it out if it works and if it doesn’t we’ll bin it.” So Jim came in to record it and the rest is history. He’s very genuine about it, that’s one thing I have to say, he genuinely believes it. But there is a lot of danger on the Internet. It’s great for providing a wonderful amount of information that you can access. But it’s a case of which stuff you actually access. That’s why you still need university lecturers and teachers to guide and channel people to the right sources.
Have you spoken to any of the Corr sisters about it?
Not about that. One of the other sisters (Caroline), was on previously, she was leading a campaign to encourage people to breast feed. And they gave out to me and said in work that I gave her a bit of a hard time, because I would’ve taken the approach that, “Hang on, breast feeding isn’t necessarily for every woman, not every woman is actually comfortable with it, and in maternity hospitals there is enormous pressure that you must breast feed.” I’ve seen this with my wife, who wasn’t comfortable with it. A lot of women it doesn’t suit.
And in those cases, the father has an opportunity to bottle-feed the newborn, which can help forge a closer bond.
Absolutely, I bottle-fed all my kids since they were tiny and I think it actually has a lot to do with the fact that they’re as comfortable with me as they are with their mother, they bonded very quickly with me. Anyway I think she was quite taken aback by that, I think she was expecting maybe a soft piece.
You have mentioned in the book how you can get extraordinary glimpses of people just before they go on air. In 2007, seconds before a Bertie Ahern interview was due to start, he confessed to being sick and tired of the election campaign and what he was going through.
That really shocked me. I said in the book, “Hang on a second, is he trying to lull me into this... is this another play?” Because there were all these cameras outside, the lights were flashing, and it’s not like Bertie to reveal himself, he’s always cautious. But yeah, that was certainly a moment. Bertie has this thing during interviews that Ray Darcy has noticed as well, where he can tend to pick a spot behind you on the wall and speak to it – a bit like the General being interrogated by the Gardai! You always feel like waving!

Who Really Runs Ireland? is published by Penguin