Profile - Jim Mansfield:This week's controversy over foreign flights landing in his Weston airport is not the first time Jim Mansfield has crossed swords with the authorities, writes Barry O'Halloran.
Property developer and hotelier Jim Mansfield, was in the news again this week when it was reported that Weston, the private airport he owns in west Co Dublin was flying passengers in without permission.
The row was enough to prompt the normally reclusive millionaire to appear on RTÉ's main evening news bulletin. He seemed pretty annoyed. The problem sprang from the fact that Weston has no port-of-entry status, something that did not make any difference until a change in the law in late 2004.
Until then, if anyone was flying into Weston from outside Britain or Ireland, the Garda and Customs had to be informed. It was up to them to come out and inspect the flights, which they did on occasion.
After the change in the law, visitors from outside Ireland or Britain had first to go to a port of entry, which limited them to the main international airports. However, Mansfield maintains that Weston was not informed of the change until the Ryder Cup last year. The airport was given temporary port-of-entry status, and applied for full status - something it has yet to receive from the Department of Justice.
After the Ryder Cup, it continued as before until last November, when the authorities informed airport management that they would no longer come out to inspect flights, and instead passengers travelling from outside Ireland or Britain would have to divert to a port of entry. This means that the flights have to first touch down in Dublin airport before going on to Weston.
Mansfield described the situation as a "scandal", and likened the situation to someone being given a pub licence one day and having it withdrawn the next.
It's not the first time he's crossed swords with the authorities. A €50 million convention centre that he has been building at his Citywest Hotel and golf course property in Saggart, Co Dublin, is the subject of two High Court judicial reviews after An Bord Pleanála shot down two appeals against South Dublin County Council's decision to refuse permission.
He says he is the wronged party in this dispute also. The local authority claims that the centre was built without permission, but Mansfield maintains he originally received planning. The frame for the centre has been put up, but work has been halted. Those opposed to it include Point Depot owner Harry Crosbie.
One of the reasons the planning appeals board refused his appeal was on transport grounds. There would be difficulty accommodating the additional traffic. Mansfield dismisses this. He is one of three developers who are contributing €13 million each to have the Luas extended to Saggart, the others being Harcourt Developments - whose shareholders include broadcaster Mike Murphy - and Citywest Business Campus developer Davy Hickey Properties.
Harcourt and Hickey have had considerable lands rezoned along the proposed Luas route. Harcourt's land bank there is worth €400 million as a result. It bought the site for €13 million.
But HSS, Mansfield's company, failed last December to get South Dublin County Council to rezone 5½ acres on Citywest Golf Course for housing, and to get a hotel and retail centre reclassified. At the time, rumours were circulating that he would pull his share of the Luas funding if the properties were not rezoned. After the vote, he said he was committed to contributing to the tram line's construction and basically took a "you win some, you lose some" attitude. Privately he was said to be devastated at the decision, which he felt was unfair, and contrary to a local authority pledge to treat all the developers involved fairly. The council itself would argue that it has done everything to facilitate Mansfield.
While sources say he does not tend to feel hard done by, they point out that he feels he has attracted more than his fair share of bad publicity recently. A lot of this dates back to an incident last year when a passenger destined for Weston was intercepted outside a Belgian airport with a large quantity of heroin.
The jet that was due to carry him belonged to Mansfield, but, as a result of an exchange of aircraft between two companies, it was being used by an organisation with which he has no connection. He has always maintained he was not aware the plane was in Belgium at the time.
This prompted a lot of rumours, all of which were dismissed as untrue, about what was going on in Weston. Not long afterwards, a newspaper published a story stating Mansfield had a criminal record. He is now suing it for libel.
There has also been a lot of local objections to the level of activity at Weston, although that is due to be reduced - it is currently used for training flights, a service Mansfield wants to phase out.
Mansfield's wealth (estimates have put it at about €500 million) is part of the reason that he attracts publicity, but he was a millionaire before he ever got into property.
From Brittas, Co Dublin, Mansfield left school in his early teens and worked first on a farm and then in a quarry. By 17, he had saved enough to buy a truck and put himself on the road with a haulage business. Several more vehicles followed, but at one stage he realised he was making "less with seven than with one", so he moved into buying and selling trucks and heavy machinery.
But as the recession bit in the late 1970s and early 1980s and construction virtually collapsed, he began to see the downside of this business too. Like a lot of people back then, the US provided him with an opportunity to beat the slump. He travelled to Florida to visit a heavy machinery auction, and found a ready-made outlet for the trucks and bulldozers that were grinding to a halt all around Ireland.
It was the early part of the Reagan era, the US economy was heading in the opposite direction to Ireland's, and there was a favourable exchange rate. He chartered a ship and brought over 100 diggers, Caterpillars and the like to Florida. In some cases he bought them from their Irish owners and sold at a profit, in others, he agreed to sell the equipment on their behalf and take a cut. It paid off handsomely, the business became his mainstay and he established a permanent base there.
The next pivotal event in his career resulted from the Falklands War, which erupted in 1982 between Britain and Argentina, after the latter invaded the Falkland Islands, a British territory in the south Atlantic, close to the South American country's territorial waters.
The conflict itself brought a second term in government for the Margaret Thatcher-led Conservative Party, and the fallout catapulted Mansfield well and truly into the big time. Following the war, the UK government hired a consortium to build an airport on one of the islands. The work required 1,100 earth-movers, which were auctioned off once the job was done.
No prizes for guessing who made the highest bid. Mansfield resold much of the equipment from a base in Atlanta, Georgia, in an auction that was the biggest of its kind then seen in the US. That generated about £19 million. The rest he sold in Liverpool Freeport, netting another £7 million.
This led to a row with the British authorities, who charged Mansfield's company, Truck and Machinery, and the shipper, Swaine Freight, VAT, despite the fact that the Tories had designated Liverpool a freeport to facilitate tax-free international transactions.
Swaine took the matter to the European Court of Justice, where it eventually won. By the time this happened, Mansfield had lost interest - he was, as he said in an interviewer several years ago, "doing other things".
The other things included property, and in particular the property with which he is now most associated, Citywest in Saggart, Co Dublin. He bought it in 1990 for £1 million; now it's worth close to €400 million.
He quickly developed a reputation as a shrewd deal-maker. He bought and redeveloped the old Clondalkin paper mill site in Dublin as a shopping centre at a cost of £5 million, and sold it on for €25 million. He also doubled the €10 million he spent on one site when he sold it on to another developer, Pino Harris.
As his wealth grew, it was suggested that he had support from some other quarter as well. He laughed this off in a magazine interview in 2001, saying bluntly that he did it all himself and had never had a partner in his life. He added: "It's likely I would fall out with a partner if had one".
This sounds like a fair assessment of his own character. People who have worked with Mansfield say it's a 24-hour job, and that as well as never resting, he wants everything done properly down to the last detail. There's no doubt that he's a tough taskmaster, but associates say he is also very loyal to those who work for him.
Not everything he has tried has worked out. Earlier this decade he bought the historic Palmerstown Demesne near Naas, Co Kildare for £10 million from the Biddle family. A passionate Formula One fan, he had ambitions to build Ireland's first F1 track on part of the property.
He opened negotiations with Formula One franchise owner Bernie Ecclestone, which went well initially, but the eventual terms of the deal were not attractive to Mansfield. Basically, it appeared that the organisation wanted a substantial share of the enterprise without contributing to financing or sharing any of the risk.
He has spent a lot of money doing up the house, and supposedly intends moving in there. Currently he lives in Citywest. He is married and has three sons, Tony, PJ and Jimmy. PJ is married to former Miss Ireland and current model agency boss Andrea Roche. Despite this glamorous connection, none of the sons hangs out in places, or with company, that might ensure regular appearances in the gossip pages.
In fact, the family are said to prefer to stay out of the limelight and get on with running the business. They're obviously taking their lead from Mansfield, who at this stage would definitely prefer to stay out of the news.
The Mansfield File:
Who is he?Self-made multi-millionaire property developer
Why is he in the news?A controversy over the status of Weston, his airport in Co Dublin, used mainly by private jets
Most appealing characteristic:A knack for turning muck, and pretty much anything else, into money
Least appealing characteristic:Not known for his patience with red tape or bureaucracy
Most likely to say:"I did it my way."
Least likely to say:"I don't think I can afford that."