28 November 2010 Sunday Independent W H O ’S W H O I N S PI R I N G H O P E I N A N AT IO N I N T U R M OI L 21 THE PEOPLE MORGAN KELLY OLIVIA O’LEARY WHO Compelling expert Among the immortals of Irish broadcasting, her wit and INSPIRED: who predicted perception helped her succeed at home and abroad financial meltdown LIVIA O’Leary has established ORGAN Kelly, Oherself among the economics the immortals of Irish Mprofessor at broadcasters. Her UCD, is undoubtedly weekly political the most heroic voice of column on RTE’s the financial meltdown. Drivetime is possibly He predicted the the most perceptive apocalypse. And he was radio commentary on right. While banking any Irish station, economists were radio or television. It dismissing Morgan as a is hard to recall that maverick, he challenged Olivia, many years SHANE the economic John Bowman’s conspiracy, the junior, was the orthodoxy that landed pioneer of Questions ROSS Ireland in its current & Answers, well mess. before he took it over. At first, no one She lifted RTE’s listened. Morgan was Today Tonight to Ireland needs rubbished as a mad dizzy heights in the monk ranting on about Eighties, as one of the heretics who the orgy that would end station’s first front- do not in doomsday. It did. He line women caused delicious interviewers. She was genuflect consternation among soon poached by to the Ireland’s conventional BBC’s Newsnight, where she became its first regular female presenter. economists when he Olivia was only one part of a great partnership. Her husband Paul establishment, spoiled their annual love-in at Kenmare by attacking Nama as ‘cash for Tansey was one of Ireland’s leading economists before he died suddenly trash’ and fingering Ireland as stuffed with zombie banks. The response two years ago. Together with their delightful daughter Emily — not who challenge from the economists was so hostile that one of their number even surprisingly, an economics graduate — the family formed an instant the consensus, questioned Morgan’s right to speak his mind. Happily, Morgan is fearless. think tank that any government could have happily hired as He confines most of his media appearances to writing beautifully crafted consultants. Breakfast at the Tansey/O’Leary household must have been who will pieces for the Irish Times and makes very few outings on television. His a heady hotbed of ideas in the days when Paul and Olivia were both rattle every indifference to the views of his colleagues, the banking establishment and pumping out ideas on the national airwaves. the Government have made him the most compelling independent Olivia combines a razor-sharp scepticism with cutting humour that official cage commentator on the economy. Morgan always martials his figures to back means she is in huge demand for conferences and media events. She is up his arguments. the best of company and ranks high in the roll of honour of Irish people in sight. His most recent prediction, that the next disaster will emerge from unpaid who have effortlessly succeeded overseas. To hell mortgages, has eerie resonances of his prescient earlier warnings. with the prisoners of EAMON DUNPHY conventional thinking, those Slaughterer of sacred cows and champion of ordinary people comfortable AMON Dunphy is creatures Ireland’s leading Eiconoclast. The of the former international footballer, who left authorities school at 14, fearlessly and their attacks sacred cows in Ireland with a panache puppets in that verges on the politics and reckless. Few people in Ireland have expressed the media. such a genuine sense of outrage as Dunphy at More than what he sees as ever we need institutionalised MICHAEL D HIGGINS people not corruption in Irish public life. His Outstanding orator whose eccentricity distinguishes him beholden to willingness to admit his own imperfections and from the banal majority of modern Irish politicians the oligarchs a human tendency to fly off the handle in FIRST came to know Michael D in 1984 when he led a group of four of who have public appearances has us as parliamentary observers to the Nicaraguan elections. It was there seized such a endeared him to a large I— and later on a similar mission to Chile — that I learned not to agree section of the Irish with him, but to love him. grip on the people. And to me. Michael D is the most passionate politician in Leinster House. He is the nation. It is a Eamon is best only orator left in either the Dail or Seanad. No one else is ever likely to known as a football persuade his peers to turn up the volume on the monitors in their offices, time for pundit, but has made his name as a serious commentator on the burning let alone to head for the debating chamber to listen. The man who took part heresy, not issues of the day. His success as a journalist in both the Sunday in the anti-Vietnam marches in the Seventies had lost none of his ideals by Independent and later on Today FM’s Last Word programme has brought the end of the Noughties. No one challenges the president of the Labour orthodoxy. him love and loathing in almost equal measure. His books on Matt Busby, Party in Ireland’s corridors of power as the champion of human rights U2 and Roy Keane have proved his versatility, but it is his beautiful writing around the world. style that has impressed publisher and public alike. Sometimes the Galway poet seems eccentric, even delightfully barmy, but A stroll down any street in Dublin with Eamon will leave you in no his eccentricity is the most precious commodity he possesses. It doubt that he is not only a figure of fame, but that the ordinary citizen feels distinguishes him from the mediocrity that has come to envelop nearly all that Dunphy is on his side, always challenging the establishment of members of the national parliament. whatever hue. The vague aura of an enfant terrible helps his undoubted He was minister for the Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht in the brief street cred. His views have changed over the years, making it hard for him Labour-Fine Gael coalition of the mid-Nineties. Anyone ready to dismiss to join any political party, although he has received several approaches. this truly great Irishman as an impractical idealist should know that he is Best-selling author, controversial commentator, football pundit and good an unlikely, but passionate, president of Galway United Football Club, friend, Eamon is constantly self-effacing, at his most entertaining when where the old socialist’s chief executive officer is none other than the rogue telling stories against himself. trader Nick Leeson, who brought down Barings Bank..