The recent marriage equality referendum has united Ireland in a way unseen in recent times. Old and young, every citizen of this country seemed to have a voice to be heard and our vocal chords were strained for the first time outside of a pub in years. And when the yes result was announced we all stood there with a pint in one hand, rainbow flag in the other, in utter disbelief that we actually made something happen. Yes that’s right, we and we alone actually changed something. If you aren’t from Ireland you may find the fact that I’m applauding a popular idea being voted through a bit embarrassing; however it needs to be emphasised and applauded because it rarely happens. This is down to a simple and often overlooked fact, the Irish population and politics mix about as well as gay bar in St. Peters Square.

If you’re Irish and still reading this I congratulate you, because at this stage nearly all your close friends and family have clicked that little “x” in the top right corner with the mention of the undesirable “P” word. It doesn’t take much to wonder why we have no interest in politics, our mocking of anyone who seems to care for an issue paralleled with our “Fuck it be grand” attitude is as intrinsic to the Irish character as drinking Lucozade for a hangover or ringing up Joe Duffy about the potholes. But guess what, we may have fucked it, but it really isn’t so grand.

We all like to think that the recession has changed all this. We didn’t cop on to the boys in the banks running amuck but sure as long as you learn from your mistakes right? Well I’m not going to say wrong but it certainly doesn’t look like it. Now is the time for Irish electorate to step up and get informed because Bob certainly called it right, the times are a changing. Ireland is set and primed to be the capitalist baby brother to the United States, and if you know a thing or two about capitalism in America, you’ll know how the magic 8-ball reads: Outlook not so good. However, like most people the likelihood is that you don’t know much about American capitalism other than a hippie from The Simpsons telling you “It’s all the corporations’ man”; which is actually a pretty solid start.

In America, money equals politics and politics equals money. With President Obama’s re-election campaign costing roughly around $2 billion, it isn’t hard to see where things start to go astray. Huge companies making multi-million dollar investments into the men and women who are supposed to represent the people are obviously looking for a return on investment. That return, is the partial ability of a company to determine how a country is run. For example, Enron, one of the largest energy companies in the world, invested roughly $2.5 million dollars in the 2000 presidential elections. Return on investment? With President Bush being elected (Yes this is going to go down exactly the way you think it is):

CO2 caps set in place by the Clinton administration, limiting the amount of carbon emission produced by energy companies, were abolished.

Increased deregulation in the energy industry.

Huge decrease in renewable energy research.

Enron foreign revenues increasing from 7% to 23% over a three year period.

Well that’s just one example, and how effective can one company changing the rules a bit be on the whole world? The answer is very. Very, very effective. Currently in the U.S roughly 37.5% of the population does not believe in climate change. Like, at all. Just straight up doesn’t believe it is happening. That’s kind of a big problem for everybody, seeing as nearly half the population of the world’s biggest superpower (arguably) not believing that climate change exists makes it a bit hard to save Mammy Earth. And with companies like Enron giving millions to the people who run the country, don’t go holding your breath for any state led education programs. But what does Georgie and his limited mental capacity have to do with Ireland? Nothing. Political funding changing how this country is run however could be a reality much sooner than any of us are comfortable with. This is where Denis the Menace comes in.

If you haven’t heard by now Denis O’Brien is Ireland’s richest man. The fairy tale starts in 1995 when Mr. O’Brien acquired Ireland’s second mobile telephone license beating five other competitors allowing him to open “Esat Digifone”. The story is a twisting tale of tribunals, law suits and about €6.8 billion. To sum it up, between then and now Mr. O’Brien has managed to buy:

Dublin’s 98FM Newstalk SPIN 1038 SPIN Southwest Today FM

Digicel Evening Herald Irish Independent Sunday Independent

Sunday World Irish Daily Star (30%) Sunday Tribune Belfast Telegraph

He also owns an additional 193 newspapers, 46 radio stations around the world and an aircraft leasing company named Aergo. Note the figures are a rough estimate of what Communicorp and Independent News and Media (Parent companies owned by O’Brien) own as to put down each company and the percentage owned by each company we would be here for hours, and I’m probably boring you enough as it is.

Now. I know what you’re thinking, don’t be hating on the man just because he’s rich and you aren’t. Fair enough. Except there’s pretty good reasons to be hating. First of all, he was found guilty of bribing the Minister for Energy and Communications , Micheal Lowry, to gain the original license to start up Esat Digifone. But in Ireland instead of criminally prosecuting rich people for their crimes we charge the tax payer €200 million to hold a tribunal which can lead to no criminal conviction. Secondly, Mr. O’Brien is the proud owner of SiteServ who in case you haven’t heard are “them robbin’ fuckers” who are charging use for our hangover juice, commonly known as the water charges. Now the fact that the man just owns SiteServ isn’t enough to start gathering the pitch forks just yet; however if you can re-direct your attention to 6 lines above this one; we can see Mr. O’Briens history of gathering governments licenses is less than stellar. And thirdly, Mr. O’Brien recently used an injunction to prevent the countries media from reporting on a recent loan extension that he applied for with the IRBC (Irish Bank Resolution Corporation) or previously known as Anglo Irish Bank. While Denis claims that the national media has no right to be broadcasting his private banking affairs, an allegation made by independent TD Catherine Murphey claims that O’Brien was receiving interest at roughly 1.5% rather than the possible 7.5% on his €315 million load from the IRBC. I’m gonna let you go ahead and do the math on how much 6% of 315,000,000 is to do with the public seeing as the IRBC took a €10 billion loan from the tax payer. The case is still on going, and while it may not seem like a huge issue, one man being able to silence a whole country’s media is pretty important so we don’t end up like North Korea and all be systematically controlled and silenced by a single leader with a bad haircut (cue close up of An Taoiseach’s comb over). On top of all this did I forget to mention he’s a tax exile? When Denis’ bank account moved from the millions to the billions, he decided to take a lifelong holiday in the lil’ ol’ tax haven of Malta to avoid that nasty income tax all us plebs have to deal with.

The point isn’t whether we should hate Denis O’Brien or not. For all we know he may just be a fantastic entrepreneur who would never use his wealth or new found nobility to puppeteer our leader Enda this way and that way. However seeing as Ireland earned the 25th most corrupt country in the world title according to the Corruption Perception Index in 2012, any large financier getting chummy with our TD’s should be warily analysed. The point is that we as the millennial generation need to buck up and engage in what’s going on around this crazy island and not fall for the same shallow faces and promises our parents did. And while no current political party in the country seems to have the back bone to deal with the flash of a wad of bills, there seems to be a rising number of independents like TD Catherine Murphey that are working hard to question the privatization of our state and might even deserve your vote. All in all you could just forget all this and head off to Australia, because unless everyone decides to get on this now, those shores down under may seem more appealing, and cheaper than ever before.