ONE OF the State’s leading authorities on corporate governance, Prof Niamh Brennan of UCD, will be named as the new chair of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) today.
Minister for the Environment John Gormley is expected to announce Dr Brennan’s appointment to the key position this morning, three days after businessman Gerry McCaughey stepped down from the post less than a month after taking over the role.
His resignation came after details were leaked to the media of a complicated tax avoidance scheme, which allowed him avoid paying €4.7 million in capital gains tax in 2005.
Dr Brennan is academic director of the Centre for Corporate Governance at UCD and is also regarded as an expert in the area of forensic accounting.
Government sources said yesterday the DDDA would benefit enormously by being chaired by a person of her calibre, expertise and experience (she is also a dir-ector of Ulster Bank and the HSE).
Politically, the appointment is also viewed as significant as Dr Brennan is married to Michael McDowell, the former leader of the Progressive Democrats.
Before he left politics after losing his seat in 2007, Mr McDowell and Mr Gormley were constituency rivals in Dublin South East and were involved in several high-profile electoral tussles over the course of a decade.
Both had to endure a a marathon week-long recount for the last seat in the 1997 general election (which the Green Party leader eventually won by 27 votes). They were also involved in a heated public row on the streets of the constituency in 2007, one of the iconic moments of that election campaign, that was later nicknamed as the “Rumble in Ranelagh”.
Green Party sources in Government last night portrayed the decision as an example of a conscious and deliberate strategy by its two Ministers not to engage in political cronyism when making appointments to the boards of State bodies.
“Given the political history between Mr Gormley and Mr McDowell, Ms Brennan might have been almost the last person you would have imagined would have been appointed.
“However, the Greens in Government have decided that all appointments should be made on merit irrespective of party affiliation,” said the source.
In recent years, Dr Brennan also chaired the Commission on Financial Management and Control Systems in the Health Services, the report of which informed the decision to reform the ser-vices, then operating as separate health boards.
She has also established a high profile on radio and TV in recent years as a panellist on current affairs programmes.
Mr McCaughey, who was appointed earlier this month, also had strong connections with the Progressive Democrats and stood as a candidate for the party in the 2002 general election.
