Shane Ross

Shane Ross TD
Ross at his election announcement, 2011
Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport
Incumbent
Assumed office 6 May 2016
Taoiseach	Enda Kenny
Preceded by	Paschal Donohoe
Teachta Dála
Incumbent
Assumed office February 2016
Constituency	Dublin Rathdown
Teachta Dála
In office February 2011 – February 2016
Constituency	Dublin South
Senator
In office October 1981 – February 2011
Constituency	University of Dublin
Personal details
Born	Shane Peter Nathaniel Ross (1949-07-11) 11 July 1949 Dublin, Ireland
Nationality	Irish
Political party	Independent
Other political affiliations	Fine Gael (1993–97)
Spouse(s)	Ruth Buchanan
Children	2
Alma mater	University of Dublin University of Geneva
Profession	Stock broker, journalist
Religion	Church of Ireland
Website	www.shane-ross.ie

Shane Peter Nathaniel Ross (born 11 July 1949) is an independent Irish politician and former business editor of the Sunday Independent. A former Fine Gael local councillor (on Wicklow County Council) and a former Fine Gael general election candidate (in the Wicklow constituency), he is the current Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport in the government of Enda Kenny.

Ross was the longest-serving member of Seanad Éireann (representing the University of Dublin constituency), until he was elected to Dáil Éireann as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin South constituency at the 2011 general election.^[1] In the 31st Dáil, he was a member of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee and founded the Independent Alliance. He was re-elected to the 32nd Dáil and appointed by Enda Kenny as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport in 2016.

Early life and career

Shane Ross was born in Dublin in 1949. He is the son of former Senator and prominent member of the legal fraternity, John N. Ross,^[2] and the noted gardener and writer Ruth Isabel Sherrington.^[3] He was schooled at St Stephen's School, Dundrum, and Rugby School, before attending Trinity College, Dublin, from where he graduated with a degree in history and political science in 1971. During his time in Trinity, he was the Record Secretary of the College Historical Society, the world's oldest student society.^[4] A stockbroker with NCB, Ross was Business Editor of the Sunday Independent, Ireland's biggest-selling weekend broadsheet, until his election to the Dáil in 2011, when he resigned the post. He is married to Ruth Buchanan, a former presenter and journalist with RTÉ, Ireland's national broadcaster. His son-in-law is Nick Webb, who succeeded him as Business Editor of the Sunday Independent.

He was first elected to the Seanad in 1981 as an independent candidate for the University of Dublin constituency, and was re-elected on nine occasions^[5] becoming the longest-serving member of the house.^[6]

He stood unsuccessfully as an independent candidate at the 1984 European Parliament election for the Dublin constituency. At the 1991 local elections, he was elected as a Fine Gael candidate to Wicklow County Council for the Bray electoral area, and served until 1999.^[5] He stood as a candidate for the party in the Wicklow constituency at the 1992 general election but did not gain a seat, remaining instead in the Seanad where he once again sat as an independent after the 1997 election.

He is one of Ireland's most visible business commentators, promoting free enterprise, small government and low taxes and is widely identified as one of the most visible champions of laissez-faire capitalism in Irish politics, praising Irish Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy ^[7] as a "brilliant minister in the boom years" and lauded McCreevy's controversial tax individualization as "visionary".^[8] He profited from the boom in Irish land prices, selling his home at Carrickmines to a developer in 2004 for an estimated €4 million to €4.5 million an acre; however he subsequently bought a house in Enniskerry for €6.2 million in 2005. Despite labeling himself as one of Ireland's foremost business commentators his record as a stock picker is mixed, as he noted himself "my record when a stockbroker was so bad that Dermot Desmond rightly gave me my P45. ...if any readers are beginning to take me seriously, remember it was I who advised people to sell First Active Shares when they went public and subsequently quadrupled and it was I who told innocent investors not to touch Ryanair shares with a barge pole at the flotation. They rocketed.".^[9]

Shareholder activism

Ross promotes himself as standing up for small shareholders and consumers.^[10] In 2000, he and Eamon Dunphy championed the case of small shareholders of Eircom after shares in the former state-owned company dropped by more than a third in value in just over a year. Ross took the Board of Directors to task over the level of salaries, bonuses and fees being paid and denounced a plan whereby senior management were to get share options at a value below the flotation price. He was also sharply critical of the decision to sell the mobile phone arm Eircell to Vodafone and later sought the dismissal of 5 board members at the March 2001 EGM,^[11] citing poor share price performance and poor acquisitions.

At a shareholders' meeting in May 2005, Ross highlighted the monopolistic practices of tolling agency NTR plc.^[10] Ross persisted in drawing attention to the issue, criticising the National Roads Authority in August 2008 for its inadequate and confusing management of the M50 barrier-free tolling system,^[12] and was reported in The Sunday Times of London as having declared that "The removal of the barrier should have been cause for celebration. Instead, we have higher tolls, an administrative mess and pending chaos".^[13]

Stance on Corporate Governance and Cronyism

The packaging conglomerate Smurfit Group which was widely held by small Irish shareholders has also been a frequent target for Ross, specifically its high executive pay, poor shareholder returns and alleged nepotism^[14] and cronyism.^[15]

Criticism of Bank of Ireland

Prior to the Irish financial crisis he was a persistent critic of the performance of Bank of Ireland, of which he was a shareholder. He contrasted the conservative performance of the "establishment" Bank of Ireland with other financial institutions, notably Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS) and Anglo Irish Bank (Anglo) which he praised. In his Sunday Independent column he described Michael Fingleton's Irish Nationwide as publishing "a cracking set of figures... he even leaves superstar Sean Fitzpatrick's Anglo Irish standing"^[16] " and in another column dismissed shareholder critics of Fingleton, notably Brendan Burgess^[17] and contrasted the small shareholder rebellions of Eircom, Smurfit and First Active with that of the INBS, whose CEO, he claimed "despite all his abrasiveness, was delivering small riches to them" ,^[18] Ross dismissed the corporate governance concerns of Fingleton's critics writing "for all his faults, has delivered the only thing that matters in business: profit".^[18] In his article on Pernod Ricard executive Richard Burrows' appointment as the Governor of the Bank of Ireland Ross claimed it was mainly due to Burrows' social status as a "toff" and criticized the bank for not even interviewing the "far too dynamic" Sean FitzPatrick, then CEO of Anglo Irish Bank.^[19] In 2007 Ross praised Sean Quinn's purchase of a stake in "anti-establishment Anglo Irish Bank" and referred to Quinn as "this genius... [who] has combined being a champion of the customer with making a mint",^[20] describing Quinn Direct as "the most successful insurance business in Ireland".

Anglo Irish Bank revelations

In April 2008, Ross revealed^[21] that a group of Anglo customers were planning to launch a leveraged fund to buy Anglo shares in order to "squeeze" the Anglo "short sellers" whom Ross blamed for the collapse in the Anglo share price. Ross had been briefed by a member of the group and quoted him saying “We are going to teach the brokers and hedge funds that damaged the bank a salutary lesson... They will come out of this with their fingers burned”,^[21] the episode became known as the Maple 10 and cost Anglo and ultimately the taxpayer €451 million.^[22] As leverage for the Anglo share purchase was provided by Anglo this coordinated action would have constituted market abuse.^[23]

Ross was also a trenchant critic of the under-performance of the Irish Pension Funds, and contrasted their performance with the SVM Global's Saltire Fund, the hedge fund which he chaired,^[24] however in 2013 the Saltire Fund revealed a large loss of 32.4% during a period in which global stock markets had gained 17.7%.

Campaigning and political activism

In the aftermath of the voters' rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in its first referendum in June 2008 in spite of support for the treaty by the major political parties, Ross highlighted the "disconnect" between the ruling caste of the nation's politicians and the democratic will of the public.^[25]

In January 2009, he took the Central Bank of Ireland and Ernst & Young to task for their failings leading up to the nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank,^[26] In his capacity as Senator, Ross pressed Allied Irish Bank executives on the bank's fraudulent offshore dealings involving subsidiaries and Caribbean front operations, charging that the only party to be disciplined in the affair was the whistleblower who brought it to light and forcing from the bank's CEO Eugene Sheehy the admission that the institution may have been in breach of the Companies Act.^[27] He authored an account of the Irish financial crisis later that year – The Bankers: How the banks brought Ireland to its knees.^[28] In October of that year Ross drew the ire of the public transport company CIÉ for publicising charges of widescale fraud and mismanagement within the semi-state organisation.^[29] He has criticised government inaction in voicing concerns about the Sellafield nuclear plant,^[30] and has called for stronger legal protection for whistleblowers in cases of fraud and corruption.^[31]

For his investigation into waste at the state training agency FÁS pursuant to the FÁS expenses scandal, Ross was recognised by his peers as the 2009 Journalist of the Year. Ross is frequently featured as a source by international news media,^[32][33] and has been cited as "one of Ireland's foremost financial commentators" by the Associated Press.^[33]

Dáil Éireann

On 15 January 2011, during the course of a television interview Ross announced that he would stand as candidate at the 2011 general election, running in the Dublin South constituency.^[34] He had refused an offer to run for the resurgent Fine Gael party and become an "insignificant backbencher", and was determined instead to stand as an Independent candidate, declaring: "I think you're going to see in this election a huge number of similar independents who want to put an end to cronyism, who want to see a change in the political system, who want to put an end to Civil War politics in Ireland, who want to see an end to the kind of tribal politics we've got, who are going to stand in the election as well".^[35][36] In the general election campaign Fine Gael TD Alan Shatter attacked Ross,^[37] saying the senator 'was a cheerleader for Sean FitzPatrick and Michael Fingleton' and had 'reserved his criticism of bankers for AIB and Bank of Ireland and celebrated the enormous profits earned by Anglo and Nationwide'.^[38] In the election Ross got the second highest vote in the country when he polled 17,075 votes in Dublin South to head the poll.^[39]

In April 2011, Ross claimed the Government was “wearing the clothes of the last government of Brian Cowen” in its economic policy. He asked why senior bondholders had to be treated in the same way as depositors. “They are completely different creatures,” he said. “Senior bondholders go out there and take a risk and make an investment.” Ross claimed that Enda Kenny’s greatest cheerleaders in his policy were in Fianna Fáil. “The support is coming from the last government,” he added. “And very few people can see the difference, if there is any, between this Government and the last government in its attitude to the banks.” Ross accused the Government of completely and utterly surrendering to the IMF and the EU. “They know that, we know that . . . everybody knows that,” he said. “Default, apparently, is the word which cannot be mentioned in this chamber.”^[40]

In February 2013, Ross spoke in the Dáil against water fluoridation, referring to a Hot Press article he cited Declan Waugh^[41] whom he called "a well known scientist" and claimed fluoridation was the cause of Ireland's "high rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes". He also claimed that the Republic of Ireland had double the incidence of Down's syndrome of Northern Ireland as a result.^[42]

In 2015, Ross co-founded the Independent Alliance.^[43]

At the 2016 general election, he topped the poll in Dublin Rathdown, and was elected.^[44] The taoiseach Enda Kenny nominated him as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport in May 2016.^[45]

Publications

• Ross, Shane (2009). The Bankers: How the banks brought Ireland to its knees. Dublin: Penguin Ireland. ISBN 978-1-84488-216-8. 
• Ross, Shane; Nick Webb (2010). Wasters. Dublin: Penguin Ireland. ISBN 978-1-84488-251-9. 
• Ross, Shane; Nick Webb (2012). The Untouchables. Dublin: Penguin Ireland. ISBN 978-1-84488-277-9. 

References

External links

• Official website
• Shane Ross at the Sunday Independent