EU-Digest: Declan Ganley - Who has been bankrolling the man behind the Irish "no to EU" campaign?

Declan Ganley - who is financing him?
A special EU-Digest report

Declan Ganley - Who has been bankrolling the man behind the Irish "no to EU" campaign?

The no campaign against the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland was buoyant, thanks in large part to the zeal of 39 year old Declan Ganley. But the question remains: who has been bankrolling him? In reality, Declan Ganley, should be a member of Ireland's elite establishment: he is after all a millionaire, living in a mansion in Galway and owning a Rolls-Royce, a Merc and a helicopter. Yet the establishment is intensely fearful of him, because of the highly effective role he has played in persuading Irish voters to reject the EU Lisbon Treaty.

He can hardly be accused of being insular, since he has amassed his fortune with international ventures which have taken him to the US, Russia, Bulgaria and Latvia, where he once also worked as an adviser to the government. His English accent comes from the fact that he was born in London, though his Irish-born parents took the family back to live in rural Co Galway when he was 13.

In some ways he did not fit in, but he compensated with precocious entrepreneurial flair which already emerged in his teens. After school he went from working on construction sites in London to a lowly position in an insurance company before going on to build a business career ranging from aluminium in Russia to forestry in Latvia, telecommunications in Bulgaria and jewelry on the Internet. Some of his concerns have not been huge successes, while others are said to have been sold for phenomenal sums. What is clear is that until this campaign, he was much better known in the business world than in political circles and concentrated his activities on international, rather than Irish matters.

Some of his many companies do business with the US military-industrial complex. One supplies emergency response systems to the military leading some in the Yes camp to portray him as a shadowy figure with connections to neoconservatives whose organisation is being bankrolled by sinister money from outside Ireland. One senior figure asked: "Are they getting it from the CIA, the UK Independence Party or their friends in the US military?" Certainly, his campaign movement Libertas has spent plenty of money. The Sunday before the vote, for example, he could afford to have a private plane soar over Croke Park trailing the message "Keep Europe off the pitch vote No". His Libertas party, which dismisses all such allegations, is part of an anti-Treaty coalition, ranging from the far-right to the far-left. In their no-campaign they concentrated on different areas affected by the Treaty and indeed in some cases areas which are, arguably, not affected by it at all.

Ireland was once hugely, automatically pro-European, originally in terms of idealism and later in terms of major funding. But eaten bread is soon forgotten, specially now that monies are diverted to newer EU entrants. For whatever his motives, Declan Ganley used his old insurance salesman skills well and sold the Irish "a policy" on Europe they could one day come to regret.