. . . and some little things

Italia n connection

News this week that a major property development in Calabria has been seized as part of an Italian police operation against money-laundering by the Mafia was a cruel blow for the 100 or so Irish people who are known to have invested in the scheme.

Belfast businessman Henry James Fitzsimons has said claims by the Italian police that he was involved in laundering money for the IRA were untrue and that as far as he had known, he was involved in a genuine business venture.

Fitzsimons’s Dublin-based company, VFI Overseas Properties Real Estate Agent Ltd, acted as a promoter of the project and has been named by the Italian police.

The company has a registered address in a business centre on Camden Row in Dublin, although a woman who answered the phone there said it is only used by VFI as a mailing address.

The two directors of the company are Fitzsimons, who served time in jail in Northern Ireland in the 1970s for IRA offences, and a Pompei-based Italian called Antonio Velardo, who was identified this week in the Italian arrest warrant that was linked to the seizing of the Calabrian development.

Filings in the Companies Office show that VFI banked with the Bank of Ireland in Dundalk, and that its auditors, up to recently, were Baker Tilly Ryan Glennon.

The latter, Ranelagh-based firm informed the Companies Office in January that it was no longer acting for VFI and that its resignation from the role did not involve any circumstances that it considered necessary to bring to the attention of the company’s members or creditors.

No doubt the extraordinary developments this week in Italy made for some interesting conversations around water coolers in Dundalk and Ranelagh.

Finger lickin’

A new eatery seems to open every week in Dublin, and this week is no different, with the opening of Ireland’s first Southern Fried Chicken outlet yesterday.

A consortium led by 25-year-old Stephen O’Brien secured the Irish franchise for the brand. O’Brien plans to open three more stores over the next 12 months, delivering a total of 50 new jobs across the State.

The chain has more than 600 stores in 30 countries.