THE IRISH GOVERNMENT IS A PRIVATE CORPORATION

THE IRISH GOVERNMENT IS A PRIVATE CORPORATION

Tom Prendeville

International businness people are familiar with the phrase Ireland Inc., but few would have guessed that it has its basis in bizarre fact.

Dunn & Bradstreet, the world’s oldest corporate listing and rating agency, insists that the Irish Government, and all its various departments, are not a ‘government of the people’ as everyone understands them to be, but rather a collection of Companies.

No, seriously! Even the Garda Siochana, which some critics argue has become a revenue generating agency for the State, thanks to the penalty point system, is not what it appears to be: it is listed by the corporate ratings agency as a company, with corporate offices at Phoenix Park.

Follow this: when a motorist is stopped by the Garda Síochána – which is a company – the paperwork is sent to the DPP – which, bizarrely, is another company.
Thereafter, if the motorist is found ‘guilty,’ the Department of Public Prosecutions instructs another company, the Irish Courts Service, to issue a summons.
And if the person fails to pay the summons, they are incarcerated in a prison run by yet another company called the Irish Prison Service.
 

You are probably familiar with the phrase ‘trading as’. Well, according to Dunn & Bradstreet, which was established in 1841, the Department of Justice itself is a company, and trades under the name of Office of Director of Public Prosecutions, with registered offices at Chapter House, Dublin. It also trades – as companies are entitled to do – under the additional name Courts Division, which runs all the courts from the lowly District to the Supreme Court.
 

Elsewhere, the revenue-gathering arm of the state, The Office of the Revenue Commissioners, is listed as a private company with registered offices at Dublin Castle.
Meanwhile, the Department of Taoiseach is also listed as a company which trades as ‘Roinn An Taoisaigh.’ Even the Irish Army is apparently a company.
The Electricity & Public Lighting Department is an agency virtually no one in this country has ever heard of: it is a trade name of Dublin City Council, which is also listed as a company.
 

In response to a query from Hot Press, the Attorney General’s office was unable to shed any light on why all the Government Departments are listed internationally as companies and referred the query to the Department of Finance.
 

“Under the Constitution the Attorney General is the legal adviser to the government in matters of law and legal opinion. This office is not in a position to assist in relation to the query raised. I would suggest you raise the above query with the Department of Finance,” explained Caroline Daly, Advisory Counsel.
 

The Department of Finance did, however, confirm that Government Departments were listed as companies on Dunn & Bradstreet. “Government Departments are on it for information purposes only,” explained a spokesperson for the Department. Whatever that means.
Dunn & Bradstreet explained that Irish Government Departments are listed on their full financial reports as Companies and that the financial reports explain that the nature of their business is that of a ‘Government Body’ or in the case of the Gardai, a ‘National Police Force’.
 

When a new Government is formed, the Ministers are whisked up to Aras a Uachtarain and given a seal of office by the President. However, the curious ceremony is loaded with symbolism.
 

The seal of office is a corporate seal, an emblem better known as a company seal, which is used for embossing official documents with the company’s name and details. So much so, that when Cabinet Ministers sit around the table, they do so in their capacity as a collection of Managing Directors of separate corporations! Or to use the legal term, Corporation Sole – that is, a legal entity consisting of a sole incorporated office occupied by one sole individual. In essence, each Minister is a one man corporation – a distinction Irish Ministers share with the Queen of England, who is also a corporate sole.
 

Dr William Kingston of Trinity College School of Business Studies, writing in a recent edition of Studies, the Jesuits of Ireland publication, explains the distinction:
“The country’s bureaucracy has been emasculated by the doctrine of the ‘corporation sole’, borrowed from the British system. According to this, all actions by a government department are deemed to be those of an individual Minister, not of his agents. So that, wherever there is failure, the only technically ‘responsible’ person is the Minister.”
 

Strangely for a Government obsessed with obscure legalise, the EU flag – which most Ministers proudly flaunt in their offices – is not flag at all, but rather a corporate logo. The reason for the distinction is that the EU is not a country, but rather a set of trade agreements.
This article first appeared in 2010.