Noel Smyth

When asked by Joe Duffy on Liveline during the week for his feelings on the offer by members of the private sector to build the new children's hospital on their own site at Newlands Cross at no profit to themselves thus saving the state €250 million Euro, Ben Dune said that he found it hard to believe. When pressed by Duffy to qualify his opinions

on the subject he went on to say that he had spent a lifetime in business dealing with builders, bankers, architects, lawyers and auctioneers and that he rarely if ever encountered members from their ranks anxious to do anything for nothing and here he was now being asked to believe that Noel Smyth had managed to assemble a consortium recruited from those very ranks offering to build a hospital for the state at no financial gain to themselves. “I find it hard to believe” Ben said, repeating the words hard to believe many times.  And of course it is hard to believe particularly bearing in mind all of the revelations that have been emanating for what seems like an eternity now from the various tribunals into the murky world of building and planning scandals.  Nothing revealed in these tribunals has done anything to negate or lessen the widely held belief that developers and their coterie of allied professionals, have long since, and of course still do, treat this island as their own private fiefdom.   They make the laws, interpret the laws, amend the laws and when necessary break the laws to suit themselves, all in the glorious never ending pursuit of profit.   The country to the developers would appear to be no more than a glorious high yielding bovid, something to be massaged, milked and churned whilst still lactating fulsomely before being unceremoniously tossed aside in favour of more luscious pastures when past her prime.  That is certainly what history, most especially recent history has thought us.  So, it is quite understandable that so many of us, like Ben Dune should find Noel Smyth’s offer, hard to believe.

One of our problems in this regard is that unlike the States with its long history of philanthropy; Smithsonian Institution, Peabody Fund, Carnage Corporation, Rockefeller

Foundation,   Ford Foundation, Kellog Foundation etc, we in Ireland have no history of philanthropy.   Americans are used to philantrhpoy, they grow up with it they take the money and rightly or wrongly don’t question the motives if any behind the bequests. It’s different here however  we’re not used to hearing of rich people giving away money with no strings attached and it a kind of brings out the cynic in us.  In recent years the name of Chuck Feeney has surfaced here as a philanthropist, but then he’s American, perhaps Irish American, but American none the less. We don’t know much about him, he lives far away, so we can accept his largesse without asking too many questions.  And of course JP

is reputed to be very generous around his native Tipperary.  Still manys the man would say he’d serve the country far better if he stopped being a tax exile and paid his fair share of dues here.  And maybe that’s where the answer lies in our quest to understand why just now we may be seeing the emergence of a native, home grown philanthropist class.

Just maybe, just perhaps we are all wrong in being cynical and disbelieving about our newly discovered philanthropists. I’m trying to be charitable here, perhaps the reason why we have no history of philanthropy in Ireland is that up to now conditions were never right, never conducive for it.  But maybe now all has changed.  Maybe now the fundamentals have changed and the soil has been  tilled, fed watered and nourished to produce a nice fat crop of philanthropists, some of who are just now pushing their heads up through the earth’s surface to bask in the sunshine of their success.   The fundamentals that have changed of course has been a decade and a  half of generous tax breaks and exemptions which married and in many ways synergistic with the property and development boom have created a medium side coterie of incredibly rich people who pay little or no tax.  So bearing in mind the rich man/camel/eye of a needle parable and of course the no pockets in a shroud adage, it is possible, perhaps unlikely but yes possible that some very wealthy people will offer to donate a small portion of their tax savings to fund what they deem to be worthy causes, no strings attached.  In short I feel that yes, the HSE should at least seriously look at Noel Smyth's proposals.