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UNDER-FIRE WEXFORD TD Mick Wallace has agreed to ‘step back voluntarily’ from membership of the Dáil’s technical group of independent and small-party TDs.
In a statement this lunchtime, the grouping said Wallace had agreed to stand down from the group “after requests from independent members of the Technical Group”.
The news comes after an Oireachtas spokesperson confirmed that the Ceann Comhairle, Seán Barrett, had denied Wallace’s request for time to make a personal explanation when the Dáil resumes business tomorrow afternoon.
TheJournal.ie understands that the request was denied because the Dáil’s standing orders – the rules governing everyday debate in the chamber – only permit personal statements under limited circumstances.
Specifically, the rules state that any personal explanation “brief, non-argumentative and strictly personal” – rules which would be breached by Wallace making a statement involving the tax affairs of one of his companies, which would not be considered ‘strictly personal’.
Wallace had yesterday said he had also hoped to discuss “how he intends to continue to serve his constituents in Dáil Eireann”, comments which would also be against the Dáil rules.
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The technical group’s statement – which was not signed by any of the five TDs from the United Left Alliance parties – also revealed that Catherine Murphy, the group whip, had asked government chief whip Paul Kehoe to amend the Dáil schedule allowing Wallace the time “to address this matter”.
‘Specified act’
Wallace has been under increased public scrutiny in the last week after he revealed details of a €2.1 million settlement agreed between his construction firm, M and J Wallace Ltd, and the Revenue Commissioners.
The settlement arose after the company, which is 99 per cent owned by Wallace, knowingly under-declared VAT to the tune of €1.4 million.
It has separately emerged that the Dáil committee on members’ interests, which is set to meet behind closed doors later this week and examine the affair, is now believed to have firm jurisdiction over Wallace’s affairs.
Committee chairman Thomas Pringle had last week suggested that the committee had no grounds on which to investigate Wallace’s affairs, as the under-declaration of VAT was made before his election to the Dáil in February 2011.
The committee is now working off the understanding, however, that Wallace’s decision not to try and repay the VAT subsequent to his election may be deemed a ‘specified act’ under the terms of the Standards in Public Office Act, 2001.
Wallace has asserted that he has no plans to resign, believing his ongoing status as a TD is a matter for the people of Wexford to decide.
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100% agree ….
But i would also like to see FFg Mitchell being asked to resign also… She was found to have taken bribes from developers…. so unless we have double standards for FFg members, Wallace and Micthell should be made leave the Dail in tandem. This is a must. Otherwise, Kenny should also resign for supporting a known corrupt politician and as such would be breaking the Dails ethics code.
Mick Wallace should be charged with theft and deception pronto! What the hell’s wrong with this country? The man admitted falsifying his VAT returns. He also admitted stealing money from the state! This nonsense of clinging on to his seat is totally irrelevant! The man is a self confessed criminal! Why are the rules different for TD’s?
Typical Irish – start a witch hunt against anyone who ever attempted to better their situation or create jobs. I’m not saying what he did tax wise was right, it wasn’t. But the reason he did it i.e. to avoid firing people and to get the cash together and pay the tax then, was right. The people of Wexford are the only people who should have any say in whether this man stays or not, and given the massive amount of jobs he’s created there I can’t imagine them having anything bad to say.
Entrepreneurs take risks and create employment – all Ireland does is kill them. As a young person looking at this country I’d be terrified of setting up a business – it seems you get one shot at it and if you fail your then you’re thrown in the dole queue thanks to our out-dated bankruptcy laws.
At least any wealth this man create he got off his backside to create while creating local employment at the same time – the same can’t be said for the majority of elitist politicians who currently represent us – what do they actually know about life, money and work when everything has been handed down to them and yet we’d rather be represented by a group of elitists politicians than people who have actually lived in the real world.
I’m not saying what Wallace did by evading tax was right, but his reasons were. It’s time us Irish stopped pointing the finger and see the bigger picture. Or alternatively we could concentrate our energies on bringing the bankers and policy makers to call for what are the real crimes against the Irish people!
Just to correct you…. “it seems you get one shot at it and if you fail your then you’re thrown in the dole queue thanks to our out-dated bankruptcy laws”
As a self employed company director you will not be thrown on the dole queue because you are not entitled to it.
@ Gavin Tobin..Now that you say it I had heard something about that, although to my knowledge if you have paid up enough stamp in the past then you are entitled to job seekers??
But if you’re entitled to nothing then that makes taking the risk and setting up a business even less appealing again – the state is punishing you for trying to be innovative, for taking a chance and creating employment. If your business doesn’t succeed straight away in Ireland then you’re in an even worse place than before – your business is gone bust – bankruptcy laws dictate you can do F*** all business wise for the next 10 years – If the Irish laws towards self employed entrepreneurs and the like existed worldwide then we’d still be living in the dark ages as the most successful business people in the world have often gone bankrupt a number of times before finally succeeding. In Ireland they’d never be given the chance to succeed.
@poppysmith Perhaps the sentiment would be more potent if not expressed on a site owned by a parent company started by real, law-abiding home-grown Irish entrepreneurs, not euphemistic ones. Oh, yeah; they’re (Distilled Media) hiring…
Yes I’m sure he made the false VAT return and doubled his and his son’s personal salaries at the same time to save the jobs of the workers who’s pension contributions he stole.
He should get a medal
@Cal Mooney
I think the tribunal actually found that Ms Mithcell who was a cllr at the time did not solicit the £500 that she ultimately received from Dunlop et al. While they stated that it was inapprorpriate they didn’t declare that she had been bribed (as far as I know) I stand open to correction however.
@ Poppy – A €300,000 director’s salary would have saved plenty of jobs too!! Didn’t see the ‘morally right’ Mick Wallace throwing that in the pot to keep jobs going!!!
James, would that be the same sort of political contribution that Bertie/Haughey/Lowry took? It doesnt take a genius to work out that taking money from businessmen, when those same business men are asking you to zone land, cannot be called anything other than a bribe… You can call it a political contribution if you want, i call it a BRIBE. She should not be in the Dail.
@poppysmith: the real “typical” response here is yours. Some people in our country will excuse anything, so long as you “create jobs” or “fix the road”. That’s what has us in the situation we’re in. Time to grow up.
I don’t think this is a distraction al all, Andrew. He was caught & time to face the music & go. Same with FG’s O Mitchell. Without question. The silence of the ULAs on this is staggering. Had ( another ) FFer or FGer been found out, the ULAs would be jumping up & down led by the eternally angry RBB. I don’t think this is a distraction at all. Just another sorry episode into the calibre of some people elected to Fáil Eireann. Listening to some of his constituents speak up for him is sad. What a nation !!
Its all Wallace and the technical group. The government are doing very little, if anything, to push this in the media. Its the opposition that are on this campaign.
The Spanish deal will never get big attention in Ireland.
“Wallace has asserted that he has no plans to resign, believing his ongoing status as a TD is a matter for the people of Wexford to decide.” So why not resign and stand in the by-election? He may well be re-elected, just as Lowry would probably be in the same circumstances, but at least he’d have given them that chance to judge him.
William… And Edna should the same then..lets see if he’d get elected again now that we know he lied to us first time around..Glass houses and all that !
Time to go Wallace. A joke of a TD. Should never have been elected until his financial affairs with the state were addressed. Making a complete mockery of our state and showing a complete disregard for the Irish people.
All TDs should be tax compliant and above board with their financial affairs if they wish to represent our country. End of story.
no reg..no pink shirts in my family.. there’s bigger fish to fry..over the weekend Spain got bailed out, and on their own terms,not like us. €100 billion and thats just for starters but people give out more about wallace then then do the government for selling us out and not standing up for us.
So we should all stop paying our taxes and loans, yeah Andrew? Just because the Spanish apparently got a better deal – we should just ignore our financial obligations to the state which pays for the some, hospitals, guards, parks, playgrounds and so on?
Wallace political life has been controversial since day 1. Debts he isn’t paying, issues with employees bringing him to court, and now not paying the state VAT.
Absolutely disgraceful and is just as bad if not worse than those found to have taken bribes.
Go Mr. Wallace! You’re no different to the other, doesn’t matter whether you stole a Eur5 or Eur5million, you did wrong and you know you did. The fact that you owned up shouldn’t give you freedom. You knew it was going to come out within days of you owning up. So you may have a conscious or you may not.
Please resign, there’s a lot of work to be done and Ireland needs looking after, obviously, you’ve just screwed up your participation so move along so other can get on with it. As ‘Pagan’ said above, you’d be screaming with everyone else if it was anyone else. Accept that you’ve screw up and get on with your life.
The real losers here are the ULA. Still silent after one of their friends have been found out for an act that would make Lowry blush. Loyalty before people must be their new motto.
The ULA is not a political party. The only members of the alliance not to condemn Wallace are the Socialist Party TDs Daly and Higgins. RBB, Joan Collins and Seamus Healy have all condemned him.
Seanie is in Poland with PJ at the Euros. Biffo was at the Offaly game. Fingers is golfing in Kerry. The Marys (Harney, Coughlan) are on sunny holidays. Kevin Cardiff is promoted to Strasbourg on huge salary increase.
Neary the nearly regulator is enjoying retirement. Bertie is lying comfortably low. Ivor Scallywag is relaxing in his principal residence. Mick Wallace is saying despite having committed a major crime, only the ignorant mob in Wexford can get him off the payroll. The senior civil service elites are retiring in droves on fat pensions. The body politic has its nose in the trough. The Catholic Church is celebrating its glory in the RDS with po faced criminals like Sean Brady gazing down serenely on the crowds.
It’s time to go……………directly to jail. I don’t want any more thieves, liars, or conmen passing themselves off as politicians. Any T.D. found to have accepted any corrupt payments of any kind should have the book thrown at them, the sooner the better. Those guilty of attempting to defraud the revenue should serve the state in penal servitude for the rest of their lives. I seem to remember someone getting 6 years recently for not paying V.A.T on garlic, sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.
I haven’t been following the news today so I don’t know if there have been any further developments, but if Mr. Wallace wants a chance to explain himself and the Dail won’t provide him an opportunity to do so, then why doesn’t he hold a press conference ? I doubt he’ll have anything to say that could possibly salvage the situation for himself but surely it’s the right thing to do…
People of Ireland love to get behind the underdog, but Mr. Wallace isn’t the underdog.
I’m from Wexford and I didn’t vote for him and I still wouldn’t vote for him should he decide to do the decent thing..Step down and offer himself for re-election if he’s brazen enough
Enough of this patronising millionaire in his second hand cloths, working man my arse, I don’t no any working men with a string of Italian restaurants in a capital city that cries poverty whilst claiming expenses and a wage of taxpayers while owing them millions. hahaha thats Ireland though
Is M Wallace a trendy but bedraggled ‘entrepreneur’ modelled on, let’s say for instance, Richard Branson? A Bohemian Blaggard who on the basis of a populist rhetoric and a brash charm found himself sitting in Dail Eireann after being washed in the door on a flood of anti FF support? Were his yellow curls and lurid shirts just another prop to lure the fickle ways of Irish voter like the flatcapped antics of the Healy-Rae’s?
Some say his past efforts in the establishment of the Wexford Youths soccer club and development of it’s grounds amount to nothing more than the equivalent of the flatcapped parish pump gombeenism of the typical rural politician and should not now be held out in his defence. It’s been said that he is now no more than another side of the grubby coins that fill the till so ably fumbled in by the likes of Ahern, Haughey, Lowrey, Callery, O’Donoghue, Flynn etc. and should be treated no differently. Perhaps there’re right and in the true tradition of the protectionism afforded to the few I’ve listed, in so far as the laws of this state provides, I think he should get off scot free too!
Why the peasants are queing up to pay tax is beyong me. People are angry that Mick didnt pay an they have to. If you have any cop on then take steps to remove yourself from the tax cycle. You all come on here n complain about Berties big salary, money wasted to bondholders etc etc. Well stop paying tax then. I think Mick was right, an the less of us fund these incompetent overpaid idiots the better.
Think I’ll put the same question to you, seen as you are happy to pay Berties pension, overpaid civil servants and German bondholders, not to mention you voted Ben for FG. Eh trolling?
Great idea G. So we should collectively stop paying taxes, reduce the country to anarchy and await god to save us. I dont there is one commentator on this site who agrees with the level of payments going to the banks and the infuriating situation surrounding B Ahern, but, where the hell would you think the country would end up if everyone decided to just go it alone. Not very well I would think.
@Boildyeggys I suggest you do some reading on North America pre 1900 economics. I’d also suggest you pick up a dictionary and learn what the word anarchy actually means. Try this http://www.caseyresearch.com/cwc/doug-casey-anarchy
By the way, I would consider what we are experiencing right now in this country anarchy, out of control spending and unaccountable government.
To be clearer, what you assume anarchy to be, I would call chaos, which is what we are experiencing right now. An out of control directionless government. We are in chaos right now, I’d welcome any alternative.
@G I never said how I voted but fyi I didn’t vote FG. I thought Kenny was rubbish as opposition leader and would be even worse as Taoiseach.
As regards obscene ministerial pensions and bondholders, I’m not one bit happy about paying those. However, I am happy to see my taxes go towards the funding of emergency services and other essential services. I can’t see how these will be funded if, as you suggest, everyone does a Wallace
Thanks for the link G, confirms what I thought I knew about anarchy. So we should leave ourselves open to ruthless opportunistic predators to dish out justice, policing and healthcare only if there is a profit in it. Well that certainly wouldn’t be open to corruption and we can all sleep soundly in our beds. And before you go off on one it has occurred to me that in a weird way we might be on the same wavelength here. It would seem we already live in an anarchist state. God help us.
“Specifically, the rules state that any personal explanation “brief, non-argumentative and strictly personal” – rules which would be breached by Wallace making a statement involving the tax affairs of one of his companies, which would not be considered ‘strictly personal’.”
Sounds he was denied under the same grounds that he’s used to justify not paying the settlement. That’s some delicious irony.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for this sort of thing, but I do, however, find it amazing that this case can be dealt with quickly and what appears to be efficiently in comparison to other crimes and cases of corruption by other members of the government. I can’t help but think that if this was a popular FF or FG member they’d simply use their usual politician babble to avoid the truth and get away scot free.
This story only came out a couple of days ago. To me it seems that this situation is well on the way to being sorted compared to some other cases. I could be wrong but there seems to be a lot more of a fuss made about this.
I dont understand why ALL poiticians arent up in arms over Olivia Mitchell. This woman has walked away scot free. She accepted a bribe from Franky brown envelopes Dunlop, she was named in the final report and yet she is still a sitting TD and claiming her salary and expenses!! Her and Wallace both need to go and Kenny & Co. Ltd need to re-start the investigations into more recent planning applications and developments. Their problem is that they know quite well that there will b a lot of egg on a lot of faces in the current administration.
What do you mean quickly and efficiently? Aside from Wallace’s admission of guilt it is following the same brass necked pattern as we’ve seen with all the others.
He shouldn’t be given the opportunity to resign, he should be fired immediately. He admitted tax evasion so regardless or his stripes or if he is a ‘nice’ guy or not he should be fired and prosecuted. End of.
He and other politicians keep saying that his resignation is a matter for the people of Wexford to decide- can someone explain how that could actually happen? Is it a case of needing a petition of signatures from constituents to force a by-election?
He’s not saying his resignation is up to the people of Wexford, but merely his election. There’s no formal mechanism for recalling a TD – his argument is that if the people of Wexford want someone else, they’ll vote for them when the opportunity next arises.
Perhaps another way of presenting the last sentence of the article ( ”Wallace has asserted that he has no plans to resign, believing his ONGOING status as a TD is a matter for the people of Wexford to decide.” ) might be: Wallace has said he will maintain his standing as a TD for Wexford pending the outcome of the next General Elections in four years time!
Strikes me as kinda ironic that in terms of resignation Wallace and his company are treated as one and the same yet in terms of giving a Dail statement a clear distinction is made.
Btw I think he should go…along with Mitchell.
What’s all this entrepreneur bullxxxx.
When I were a lad the word hardly existed. You started a business or went into business. Now it’s a badge of honour. ‘I’m an entrepreneur’.
‘I’m a risk taker.’
Perhaps if Mr. Wallace didn’t take so many bloody risks he wouldn’t be in the situation. Perhaps it was wreckless ‘risk taking’ that put this country in the mess it is in.
Perhaps a more realistic approach to business where sustainable businesses were created would have been better.
Mick Wallace may have created employment but any positive he has brought to the economy has been turned on its head by the VAT money that has been denied to the state and let’s not forget the huge sums he owes to the banks which will be paid for by the tax payer.
If we had less of these ‘risk taking entrepreneurs’ the economy would not be in the state it’s in.
What ever happens to patience, hard work, realistic expectations?
No. It had to be borrow, borrow and keep doubling up until it blows up in their faces.
Entrepreneur my arse.
Its always easy to spend money that belongs to someone else and stash your own ,we all have to pay our bills but not with taxpayers money that should include the present crop of TD . who claim for everything from a tooth brush to toilet paper .
Mick Wallace is not a hard done by entrepreneur. He is a tax evader. He didn’t try to put one over on revenue because he was trying to save jobs. He paid himself and his son a salary of €290,000 at a time when his business was going under. He was feathering his nest and nothing more.
Just because you like someone doesn’t mean they have your best interests at heart. Did we learn nothing from our love affair with aul Bertie?
I run a company, I went to do my Vat return today and guess what – it’s higher then I anticipated and I can’t pay it right now! But I will bec I have a responsibility to do so – I knew this when I set up my company. Instead, I don’t pay myself a wage until things get back on track.
mick should stay he dident do as much damage as the bankers so he dident pay his taxes for a few munths look what the bankers done and the state paid them to leave and we will be paying it back for years to come
Phil, two wrongs don’t make a right. Mick collected tax from his customers and trousered it. It wasn’t his tax to start with. It was the tax that he collected from his customers that he failed to pass to revenue. It’s far more serious that your post suggests.
Heard a good one today, Wallace’s excuse of not paying his tax in order to keep his staff employed is the same as me not paying my tax to keep the bar man in a job! Crap, you decided to deceived the tax man and therefore the state, the same one that now pays you to represent its citizens. Your a criminal , a failed business man and politician. The cynic in me thinks you only ran for election for the guaranteed cheque,
The committee is now working off the understanding, however, that Wallace’s decision not to try and repay the VAT subsequent to his election may be deemed a ‘specified act’ under the terms of the Standards in Public Office Act, 2001.
in terms of what the committee can do, going by the rules that exist, mick wallace didn’t make a decision not to try and repay
that was an interview from the business and Finance back in 2005, he didn’t chane much since…. apart from giving a big pay cheqe to himself and his son. who would blame him.i the times that were in it……..11th comandment…….. man mind thyself!!
just give the man a few mins to , if possible, but not probable, to vindicate himself. here’s a reminder of his former self back in 2005
Developer Mick Wallace’s motto is ‘Life is Short. Work Hard. Play Hard. Love Football.’ He talks to Fearghal O’Connor about wealth, wine and replicating his Italian quarter around Dublin’s working-class areas.
Brendan Behan would probably lament the lack of characters in post Celtic-Tiger Dublin. Yet he need go no further than his birthplace, Russell Street, in the shadow of Croke Park, to see that true originals still stalk the streets.
Wexford builder, wine importer and successful soccer coach Mick Wallace is bringing a little slice of his beloved Italy to a part of the north inner city that most developers only hurry through on their way to GAA matches.
Using his acclaimed Bloom’s Quarter development on Lower Ormond Quay as a blueprint, Wallace is developing 80 apartments around a courtyard with a distinctly Mediterranean flavour. A similar development is underway in Inchicore. As in Bloom’s Quarter, Wallace himself will run the Italian-themed cafés, grocers and wine bars to ensure authenticity.
Back in Ormond Quay, Wallace caresses a huge boardroom table in a plush office lined with rows of fine Italian wine. Despite the plush décor and the sundrenched view of the Millennium Bridge, nothing quite catches the eye like Wallace’s bright pink Palermo football jersey.
“Building properly in two working-class areas with the same sorts of ideas we used here appeals to me greatly,” he says. “Russell Street will be even better than this. It’s going to be beautiful. People think I am mad doing proper building work beside working-class housing estates. But if I build rubbish houses up there, what am I going to do for the area? They are going to be seriously good apartments including 26 affordable units. I am going to build very well there but still make good money on it. I’m no martyr. I am running a business and I make sure it pays its way. I never lost money on a job in my life but I try to run it in an honest fashion.”
To some, Wallace’s ageing rock star appearance suggests otherwise. When the company was laying cobblelock for the City Council on South William Street, Wallace decided to do it himself to make sure it was done right. One evening, while he worked below, Tony O’Reilly came up the steps of a nearby hotel and was met by the manager. While chatting, the manager said to O’Reilly “do you see that fella with the long hair laying the cobbles? He actually owns that company.” “My God,” Wallace recalls O’Reilly answering, “imagine owning a company with hair like that.”
Such a reaction was nothing new. Soon after Wallace started out on his own, a contractor gave him three pieces of advice. “Go to a tailor and get yourself a suit, go to a barbers and cut your hair, and join Fianna Fáil.” He still hasn’t done any of the three. “I wouldn’t look great in a suit and I certainly wouldn’t look good in Fianna Fáil,” he explains. “If I really had to choose, I’d cut the hair.”
Wallace has always known his own mind and was condemned from the altar in Wexford at an early age. After Mass, he would go to the sacristy and argue with the priest demanding to be allowed stand up in church and reply to his sermons. He wasn’t let so he never went back.
Despite this rebellious streak, Wallace had a normal background. His parents ran a general merchant business in Wellingtonbridge, which his brothers still run today. After school, he studied history and English in UCD followed by a teaching degree.
“I couldn’t afford to teach,” he says. “There was more going for pushing a wheelbarrow. Having the education makes pushing a wheelbarrow much more pleasurable. Your mind is active and you contemplate the whole meaning of existence.”
Nevertheless, he didn’t spend too much time pondering what to do next. After learning blocklaying and carpentry, he began doing extensions and attic conversions. The business went from strength-to-strength. A contract to do a huge amount of street work for Dublin City Council made the company. Wallace redid entire streets – paving, furniture, lighting – across the city centre.
This steady income allowed him to start buying land in the late-1990s. He got a great deal on the Ormond Quay site, where he has since sold €15m worth of apartments. Not everyone believed he could make a success of it.
“I had my cap in hand begging the banks for money,” he says. “It took me 18 months to get a bank to finance this and five refused me. I expected the AIB to finance it because I had a great relationship with them in Wexford for 15 years. I was brought into AIB headquarters to meet the top boys.”
They said they would consider giving him the money on three conditions: that he pre-sell the apartments, that he let AIB appoint a bigger builder and that the bank would supervise the whole project financially and Wallace would pay for their supervisor.
“In all fairness,” he said to them, “I realise that my hair might be a little bit too long for yiz and maybe you don’t like the cut of me jeans. But I will raise goats on that land before I let somebody else build it.”
If another bank had not come up with the cash, the north quays would be home to a thriving goat farm today. Wallace was always prepared to go the extra step to achieve his ambitions.
Some years ago, one of Dublin’s biggest builders was given a stark example of this. Wallace did £170,000 worth of work for him but was only paid £150,000, a stunt the powerful builder was well-known for. After six months of legal action, Wallace’s solicitor told him it would take two years to get to court and he’d be lucky to get £2,000.
“So I knew of a guy made a living out of a gun,” he says. “I made contact with him and said ‘listen, there’s a guy owes me £20,000 – will you get it for me?’ He said he would give me £16,000 and keep £4,000.”
“There was a guy working for the builder and I deliberately went for a pint with him,” continues Wallace. “‘Did you hear I’m getting the money out of your boss?’ I said to him. ‘I hired a hitman and he’s going to get it. Don’t tell anyone now.’ Next day I got a phone call from the managing director. ‘Mr Wallace,’ he says, ‘I believe there is a bit of a financial dispute on that job. Can we meet and talk about it?’ I met them and they offered me £15,000. I said I’d take £16,000. Of course, I never would have dreamt of actually hiring the hitman. I only used him as leverage but it worked.”
He admits that as a businessman he personally has done well out of many of the Government’s policies. Nevertheless, he is not afraid to criticise what he sees as Fianna Fáil’s dishonesty – most famously when he hung a massive banner on his Ormond Quay site imploring people to vote No to Nice.
“I wouldn’t be as well-off if I worked in a socialist system but I do believe that corporation tax should be higher,” he says. “The Government should put the priorities of the people ahead of those of business. I would praise the Government that does that even if it costs me more.”
For now though, he is unlikely to be found in the Fianna Fáil tent at the Galway Races. Neither is he overly enamoured with many of his fellow developers who flock to it.
“More often than not, the developer is trying to make the maximum profit and he is not awful concerned about the finished product,” he says. “It is whatever he can get away with. There are developers and builders who care but, unfortunately, too many who don’t. There are a lot of really great planners in the City Council but they don’t have enough control over the finished product.”
For his part, Wallace is prepared to go to unusual lengths to achieve the finished product he desires. He was determined to create an Italian flavour at Bloom’s Quarter so his company runs seven of the shops itself – two coffee shops, two wine bars, an Italian food shop and a clothes shop. He also gives temporary accommodation to a Communist Party of Ireland bookshop.
“Running wine bars and coffee shops is difficult,” he says. “I wouldn’t do it if I only took financial considerations into account. They are doing well but there is no money in it. I do it because to be honest I wanted to give something to the city in that line. Wine in this country is a terrible rip-off. 95% of the wine coming in here is factory wine. I am buying quality wine at a reasonable price direct from small Italian producers that I can trust. I go to the vineyards to taste the wines and meet the people, spend a few hours with them and get to know them. I wouldn’t buy their wines if I didn’t think they were honest. We are bringing quality wine to Ireland at a very affordable rate for the first time. Your average supermarket wine and a lot of the stuff available in restaurants is of very poor quality but the Irish are drinking it by the gallon.”
He now owns a small vineyard in Italy and hopes to soon sell wine from it in Dublin. But it is not just Italian wine that he loves.
“I love their football for a start,” he says. “I like the people, their passion, and it’s the best place in the world to eat. I am passionate about food.”
This love affair began when he visited the country for the World Cup in 1990. He never stopped going back and bought an apartment in Turin seven years ago. Apart from the vineyard, he has also set up a small building company in Italy – despite having to overcome incredible bureaucracy to get anything done.
Such business ties give Wallace the perfect excuse to regularly indulge his passion for Italian soccer. He tries to absorb as much as he can from the Italian game to bring it back to the Wexford Junior soccer team, which he coaches.
He has regularly taken his team to Turin for tournaments and special coaching. It has paid off – they have contested four all-Ireland finals in seven years and his influence has helped to turn the Wexford league into one of the biggest outside Dublin.
“At the moment I’m spending €1.5m on a football complex down in Wexford,” he says. “Hopefully I will start a Wexford under-21 side next year or the year after.”
He is often linked to takeovers of League of Ireland clubs such as Waterford United. “There’s no League of Ireland club paying its way so if I did set one up it would have to be on an amateur basis,” he says. “Running a professional League of Ireland club is impossible.”
Somehow, though, it seems, the word impossible does not feature in Wallace’s dictionary.
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Danny Healy-Rae has slept on it and decided he won't make complaint about 'shove' from garda
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7 hrs ago
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The choices you make regarding the purposes and entities listed in this notice are saved and made available to those entities in the form of digital signals (such as a string of characters). This is necessary in order to enable both this service and those entities to respect such choices.
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