20 years on and Ireland is still a very strange place.
Despite the raft of changes we’ve regressed dramatically.
The land of 1,000 welcomes we certainly aren’t as is clearly demonstrable.
There are too many changes to list but there’s a nasty undercurrent out there.
We are turning into a very bad version of America. Hunger and greed have taken over.
Gambling as well in an awful scourge. Particularly the way the marketeers normalise it.
The resurgence of Limerick hurling is at the root of the malaise.
When Manyoo win the Premiership the country will combust. It’s the truth.
Id definitely see it in the gaa. Asking people to join a club lotto and you’d nearly be laughed at but when Limerick got rolling the same people were roaring looking for all Ireland tickets.
It’s all about a bigger house and a new car nowadays. In a lot of areas we’ve lost that sense of community.
Gambling is a scourge of Irish society.
God be with the days when it was drink.
Cocaine is catching up
It’s tough out there for weak minded chaps in Ireland
Cash sent from an account now under garda scrutiny
Convicted fraudster Catriona Carey transferred thousands of euro to a bank account in the name of her brother, Kilkenny hurling great DJ Carey, from a business account currently under investigation by gardaí in connection with an alleged mortgage scam.
The Sunday Independent can reveal how two payments were made from the Careysfort Asset Estates account in 2020.
On February 25, a sum of €2,000 was transferred to an account named ‘DJ Carey’ while a further €2,000 was sent to an account called ‘DJ Carey AIB’ on March 4, 2020. The first payment appears to have bounced back.
Last week Ms Carey was arrested by officers from the Corporate Enforcement Authority (CEA) and was questioned over her role as director of the UK-registered company Careysfort.
She was released without charge after more than 12 hours of questioning, where she was probed over allegations of fraudulent trading, false accounting and breaches of company law.
This investigation is separate from an inquiry by the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau (GNECB).
Ms Carey was involved in an alleged mortgage scam in which she received up to €400,000 from people in financial distress after promising to help them secure new deals to keep their properties.
The GNECB received dozens of complaints from people who paid her between €5,000 and €60,000 after she said she would secure them new mortgages at a reduced rate. But the deals never materialised.
The Careysfort accounts, seen by the Sunday Independent, show a trail of lavish spending by the former Kilkenny camogie player with the money she received from desperate homeowners.
In November 2019, the money started rolling into the account — and it went out equally as quick.
She bought a €55,000 BMW, went on luxurious holidays abroad, and stayed at some of Ireland’s fanciest hotels. But she was also making a number of payments to named individuals, including her older brother. The first payment, on February 25, 2020, appeared to have not gone through and a further payment of €2,000 was then made on March 4.
The Sunday Independent contacted Ms Carey about the nature of the payments — but she did not respond by the time of writing. Mr Carey could not be reached for comment.
When contacted last year on the revelations about his sister, he had replied to say: “I’m keeping my head down and don’t want to make any comment.”
The two siblings had previously worked together at DJ Carey Enterprises Limited, which supplied cleaning products to businesses across the country.
Catriona Carey later resigned her role as a director in 2009 and left to start up her own rival cleaning business. People close to them indicated at the time that there had been a falling out between the pair, which caused a rift in the family.
Mr Carey fell on hard times during the financial crash and his once-successful business was eventually liquidated. AIB secured a High Court judgment for €9.5m in 2011 arising from loans secured on properties he had at Mount Juliet in Kilkenny and the K Club in Kildare.
The five-time All-Ireland winner was in the headlines earlier this month, after it was revealed he had reached a substantial settlement with AIB regarding his huge debts.
It is understood AIB received about €1.7m from the sale of the golf properties, and the bank subsequently agreed a payment of €60,000 in full and final settlement of the remaining debt — amounting to a write-down of around 80pc.
AIB wrote to him in 2018 confirming they had received the money.
Representatives of the majority state-owned bank have agreed to appear before an Oireachtas committee next week to answer questions about the debt write-down.
However, AIB has moved to reassure staff that the Kilkenny hurling star did not receive any special treatment.
In an internal memo sent to staff last Wednesday, AIB’s managing director of retail banking, Jim O’Keeffe, said that while he cannot comment on individual cases for legal reasons, he wanted to reassure employees “that the bank has a robust governance process for debt resolution and this process was followed”.
Meanwhile, victims of Catriona Carey welcomed news of her arrest last week.
A woman who gave Ms Carey €35,000 to save her property has said she was “sickened” when she learned the former international hockey player spent thousands of euro at five-star hotels and the shopping outlet Kildare Village after she transferred the funds.
On July 31, 2020, the money was lodged by the woman and her husband into the Careysfort Asset Estates account after Ms Carey promised them she would buy outstanding debt from their lender and provide them with a new mortgage deal at a reduced rate.
But in the days that followed, the former Kilkenny camogie player went on a luxury spending spree — splashing out €5,400 at the Trump International Golf Links hotel in Co Clare, €300 at Mount Juliet in Co Kilkenny and €900 at designer store Moncler in Kildare Village.
It is understood detectives are planning to interview Ms Carey in relation to the alleged mortgage scam in the coming weeks.
Andrew Hickey, who gave Ms Carey €15,000, said: “It’s been a long, hard road. We were wondering why she was free when all the evidence is there — so it’s a relief she has been arrested and we’re finally moving somewhere.
"From a personal point of view, it’s taken so long. The justice system is extremely slow. Yet if any of us didn’t pay our TV licence, or didn’t pay our tax to the Revenue, we’d be straight up in court.
"We hope this will be the start of the end of the long-running saga.”
Mohammad Yazdani, who is in his 70s and has been battling prostate cancer while dealing with the stress of what happened after giving Catriona Carey thousands of euro, said: “I went through a lot of pain with that woman.”
He was introduced to Ms Carey by a third party after he told them how his ex-wife had fallen behind on mortgage repayments.
“Every single time I phoned Catriona, she picked up the phone and said: ‘You’re so nice, your contract is on the way. Give me the address and I’ll send it by DHL.’ This went on and on and on, but the contracts never came.
"She was so confident all the time. I know I’m not going to get my money back, but I’m looking for justice,” said Mr Yazdani.
Always wondered about the original original bankruptcy and what happened to all that money.
Anytime you see the word “robust” used by a banker or politician, you know they are obfuscating and something dodgy has gone on.
Consent
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DJ Carey had massive debt write-down. Photo: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
February 26 2023 02:30 AM
Cowboys come and cowboys go, but AIB goes on forever.
Back in 2013, Anglo Irish Bank’s secret tapes were released. A top executive in Anglo was recorded telling a colleague that even Bank of Ireland looked down its nose at AIB’s lending antics. Senior Anglo staffer John Bowe told former Anglo boss David Drumm that Bank of Ireland looked enviously at AIB.
“Bank of Ireland,” confided Bowe to Drumm on the tapes, “think AIB have played fast and loose with lending money to every cowboy in town.”
The corpses of AIB’s cowboy clients are buried all over the Celtic Tiger’s graveyard. Their ghosts haunt us with alarming frequency.
Last week it was ace Kilkenny hurler DJ Carey’s turn to spook the nation.
RTÉ’s Prime Time had unearthed a “full and final settlement” made in 2017 between Carey and AIB over his borrowings of €9.5m. The terms were staggeringly generous to the fallen GAA star.
According to Prime Time, Carey’s loans were secured on two properties at the K Club in Kildare and another at Mount Juliet in Kilkenny, topped up by a personal guarantee from Carey.
Was DJ Carey favoured for special treatment because of his fame?
AIB secured a judgment against him. The properties were sold for €1.8m, buttons compared with their purchase prices and Carey’s borrowings. He was allowed to write off €6.4m of debt. He agreed to pony up a derisory €60,000. AIB is majority state-owned; the taxpayer took the hit.
There has been justified uproar from small AIB borrowers — particularly from clients struggling with home loans or from hard-working entrepreneurs with crippling business borrowings. Carey was a national GAA hero turned speculator, a high-wire punter who has been made to pay a paltry price for his folly.
Hard questions are being asked of AIB. Was Carey favoured for special treatment because of his fame? Did AIB, a sponsor of the GAA, decide Carey was too popular to pursue with vigour? Would the publicity hurt the bank? Had he friends in high places?
Unfortunately, AIB has form in giving — and forgiving — large loans to powerful people. Politicians have received strangely lenient treatment from the bank. Former taoisigh have been particularly well favoured, as though debt relief was a perk of office.
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Charlie Haughey
In 1999, a retired AIB bank manager admitted to the Payments to Politicians Tribunal that Charlie Haughey had been gifted a IR£400,000 write-off from his debt of £1.14m. The manager pleaded that any action against Haughey could have created resentment throughout the country, followed by a flight of customers.
More explosively, he volunteered that such preferential treatment was connected to the office held by the Fianna Fáil leader.
Haughey was well-known as a troublesome bank customer. He might even have fitted Anglo director Bowe’s “cowboy client” category, but the same could surely not be said of another ex-taoiseach, the more genteel Garret FitzGerald?
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Garret Fitzgerald outside his home in 1987
In 1999, FitzGerald confirmed AIB had written off a bad debt of close to IR£200,000 owed by him.
Garret, a director of aviation giant GPA, had lost the run of himself and asked AIB to lend him a six-figure sum to speculate in the firm’s high-risk shares. Garret the Good became Garret the Gambler. The GPA flotation flopped and he lost a packet. Like Haughey, he was overindulged by AIB.
AIB lent millions to another ex-politician and celebrity gambler, Ivan Yates, whose company, Celtic Bookmakers, collapsed leaving a sea of debt. Ivan legged it to Wales to declare bankruptcy.
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Ivan Yates at Fairyhouse on Easter Sunday 2017
DJ Carey might easily fit into AIB’s “cowboy client” category. Like Garret and Charlie, his influential position appears to have boosted his credit rating and aided his gentle treatment as a defaulting AIB borrower.
Carey’s career on the pitch was dazzling. Off it, there is little to suggest he merited such largesse from AIB.
Both his personal and business life were dogged by instability. He set up DJ Carey Enterprises, which sold hygiene products, in June 1994. After seven years his marriage broke up in a wave of publicity.
When his former wife had stepped down as a director, he installed his sister, international hockey player Catriona, in her place. She lasted eight years, after which, in another acrimonious family split, she set up a rival cleaning business. DJ replaced her as a director with his new girlfriend, Sarah Newman, RTÉ’s high-flying Dragons’ Den star.
The new partnership attracted intense media attention, but Newman called in the auditors after noticing suppliers were not being paid. A garda inquiry began. No prosecutions followed, but the company languished under a cloud.
AIB bosses will not be able to answer any questions about individual loans — due to confidentiality
Almost inevitably, their relationship — aggravated by Carey’s overwhelming debts and Newman’s fall into bankruptcy — ended in tears.
In 2012 DJ Carey Enterprises and two other companies linked to him were placed in liquidation with combined debts of €1.7m. They were dissolved in 2016. The fairy tale was over.
Last week Catriona Carey was arrested for alleged breaches of company law. That followed her conviction for fraud in 2020.
Neither DJ Carey’s business career nor his domestic lifestyle merited a €9.5m loan from a state-owned bank. Perhaps no one can blame him for taking a massive punt, especially as the consequences of failure were so minimal. The risk-reward ratio was massively weighted in his favour.
Hard-pressed citizens pay higher bank charges to subsidise the escapades of the celebrity from Kilkenny and many more like him.
AIB has serious questions to answer. It has, surprisingly, volunteered to come before the Oireachtas Committee on Finance as early as this Thursday, March 2, to answer queries about its lending activities. Normally AIB bankers would be reluctant to subject themselves to the pertinent questions of chairman John McGuinness or to Aontú’s Peadar Tóibín’s consistently penetrating observations.
The word in banking circles is that AIB is gagging to go. For the next 10 days it is a “closed period” for AIB, meaning that stock exchange rules forbid its executives from revealing any sensitive information before the release of annual results on March 8. How convenient.
They will swagger into the assembled TDs’ forum on Thursday, sweetly offering to co-operate. Unfortunately, they will not be able to answer any questions about individual loans — due to confidentiality. Unfortunately, they will not be able to provide relevant information on current matters — like profit and policy — because of the “closed period”.
Unfortunately, it is probable that certain key AIB bosses will not appear, because their utterances are supposedly price sensitive at this time.
Apart from that, of course, they will do all they can to help.
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That’s an abomination of a Copy and paste
Some anount of content there
What happened with the “downbeat rendition of Ireland’s call”? 
The Italians played it really slowly. The players couldn’t sing it. Like the rest of us so.
If your giving money to a guy who is telling you he’s seriously ill isnt their an expectation that you won’t be getting back anyhow?
That famous article makes him look like an unbelievable Walter Mitty type. A complete and utter liar. And that his lies get peddled as being true in some sort of defence of him is ridiculous.
Being famous isnt an excuse either to being a lying thieving scumbag. Which is what he is.
He courted the media and played on it as much as he possibly could. Hard to have sympathy for him being “hounded” when he went out of his way to create a name for him to be considered famous. You take fame with its good and bad. You dont have to like it and it doesnt make it right, but you know what comes with the territory.
Again, none of that excuses him being a robbing cunt.
