Gary McGann is one of the most experienced businessmen in Ireland, leading international paper and packaging giant Smurfit Kappa for 17 years. He was chairman of Flutter when it merged with the Star Group to create the world’s biggest online betting giant. It has not all been easy. He was a non-executive director of Anglo Irish Bank during the final years of Ireland’s property bubble. Aryzta, the food group that he chairs, has endured its own travails but it has now turned a corner.

In this wide-ranging interview with Alison Cowzer, McGann opens up on the challenges he has faced from his early years in business to today. Among the highlights are:

• The lessons McGann has learned from getting older.
• How to get the right boardroom skills balance.
• The need for regulation of gambling companies. 
• The opportunity for Flutter in the United States.
• The importance of corporate memory in business.
• Making a difference in Aryzta.
• What the incoming government needs to improve on.

Alison Cowzer (AC): You’re very welcome. My guest today is Gary McGann, who has had one of the most accomplished careers in Irish business with organisations such as Aer Lingus, Gilbeys, Smurfit Kappa. He was a non-executive director of Anglo Irish Bank and he’s currently chairman of Aryzta and Flutter, which we may know in this country as Paddy Power. You’re very welcome Gary, thanks.

Gary McGann (GMcG): Thanks Alison. Nice to be here.

AC: That’s a very long and interesting list of Irish corporates. Is there a common thread throughout it or has it all just happened by accident?

GMcG: I’d say more the latter than the former. I suppose the common thread is that they are all business. My friend has described me as an accidental accountant originally. And that’s true. I started life doing pre-med. Until somebody handed me a scalpel and a rabbit. And I wasn’t up for that. So, the very aged small lady who was professor of zoology told me to cut or leave. And the rest is history. I left.

AC: And then accountancy?

GMcG: No, actually. I did a BA in history and Irish because that’s fantastic for business. So, suffice to say, the people who worry a lot these days about finding themselves too young – in the days when it was unforgiving, I was like a failed priest actually, because I had two staggered starts before I got on the wagon, so to speak.

So, I ended up joining the civil service. I was the eldest of the family and my folks were not well off. Whatever about affording for me to go to university, they couldn’t afford for me to be faffing around and not finding my way. So, I went in to the C&AG office, which is the famous Comptroller and Auditor General, and spent six years there. And that’s when I started my accountancy. I did a degree by night. For the first two years, I did a degree by night in history and Irish and kept trying to explain to my boss that it would be fantastic for my career and the civil service. So, I did it the long way and the hard way.

AC: So, the accountancy, was maybe the foundation of the business career?

GMcG: Yeah.

AC: You were with Gilbeys initially?

GMcG: No Ericsson. I left C&AG and went to Ericsson and that was the real jumping off point for me. I think in all of my career I’ve had luck, mostly good and the odd bit of not so good. But Ericsson was hugely important because I met my boss at the time who hired a part-qualified accountant whose only background was in the civil service. Now, you didn’t hire into private enterprise in those days.

AC: That was quite a brave decision?

GMcG: It was a hugely brave decision from a man who was very, very different to anybody I met before or since, in terms of a CFO. He was a lateral thinker. He was very secure in his own mind. He let me take as much of his job as I was able before and I just kept looking for more and he kept giving me more. And then his boss was the CEO who ended up being my break. He never admits to it, he’s now quite elderly, but a man called Vincent Daley, who’s the CEO of Ericsson, in Ireland which was one of them first and one of the longest and one of the most successful foreign direct investments in Ireland. And from a source that isn’t typical, from Sweden. There’s not too many Swedish businesses here.

And it’s still there today with about 1,000 people who came to Ireland for the market with 400 engineers in 1964. By 1982, the Irish market justified 10 and we were at 1,000 because he had basically opened and expanded all sorts of markets. But he was fantastic. And he just gave me every opportunity and was my original boss. So that’s where I kind of got on the business trail.

No matter how hard I worked, I wouldn’t achieve things unless I figured out how to work better with people.

Gary McGann

AC: I’ve mentioned some of those companies you’ve been with. Aer Lingus, Smurfit Kappa. All very international in terms of a big international focus, not just looking at the Irish market. You’ve been global really from the start?

GMcG: Yeah, in various different guises. It’s funny, if you look at the makeup of business in Ireland today, it’s either strong indigenous, good national companies and then foreign direct investment predominantly from the US.

I started life in the private sector in a Swedish branch, a multinational, local branch. I then joined Gilbeys group, which was a British multinational local branch. And then Aer Lingus was obviously in many ways a multinational Irish state owned company. And then Smurfit, an Irish international private company.

AC: So, you had that green tinge with most of what you’ve been doing?

GMcG: Yeah. But it was interesting to see the different mindsets, different approaches, different cultures, and obviously the very different products and markets and different drivers. But, fundamentally, business is the same.

*****

“I kind of had this mental drive all the time that I wanted to be something. I wanted to achieve something.”

AC: And with that variety of industries and markets, I mean, is there a particular philosophy or north star that really informs your approach to business?

GMcG: To be honest with you, Alison, when I was younger, my folks really worked very, very hard and had very little to spare. They did what most Irish parents did, and that was to spend whatever they have in getting us educated. So, being the eldest against that backdrop, there was a huge sense of obligation not to let them down, not to waste their efforts. So, I kind of had this mental drive all the time that I wanted to be something. I wanted to achieve something. I didn’t know what. As you as you can gather from my staggered start.

And I if I’m absolutely honest, I wanted to be important. I wanted to rank for something. But most importantly, I wanted them to be proud. And then secondly, I had two brothers and a sister who were coming behind me. To be honest with you, they were smarter than I was, but they weren’t carrying this burden that I felt I was carrying. And so, I worked incredibly hard, but it took me a long time to realise that no matter how hard I worked, I wouldn’t achieve things unless I figured out how to work better with people. And the man I cited earlier, Vincent Daly, when I was 26, we had a fantastic year, he called me into the office to say we’d had a fantastic year, but he wasn’t impressed. And the essence of the message to me was the ‘what’ I had achieved was fantastic. The ‘how’ was a disaster? There was a trail of bodies left behind me. It was the first time anybody had explained to me the whole concept of the power of team versus the power of individual.

The fact that you actually achieve nothing unless it’s through people. As they describe it in football terms, the Irish team that beat Holland, when Holland had 11 of the best players in the world and we had mediocre players, we played like a team and they played like individuals. That whole learning was massive. And that’s the piece that I’ve worked with ever since, which is trying to find good people, work with good people. Try to not do it for them, stop interfering. I’m known for one very funny incident. I had a very funny guy working with me in Smurfit who was the financial controller who used to hand me stuff in draft form. In exasperation one night, he said to me, “read that without a pen in your hand.” And to be fair it’s very irritating being on the receiving end. I know it is. So, I have to unlearn a lot of bad habits and practices. But over the years, I got better at it. And the one common denominator was just to find really good people. And if you’re courageous enough, like my original boss was, find better people than you and know that they’re going to take your job and just find something else to do. And if you end up with nothing to do, you know what? That’s success, too.

And if you don’t get on the page, well then just get off the page, quite frankly.

Gary McGann

AC: Finding the right team is something that is not necessarily available to everybody. For example, someone going into an existing organisation and is presented with the team. How have you worked with improving the team?

GMcG: A number of things. I’m not at all a fan of kind of the night of the long knives or the kind of private equity approach of clearing everything out and putting in your own. I mean, the truth of the matter is that life is made up of a mix of people between the people who are, for want of a better word, the full-backs, the people that keep the show on the road but are not going to score any goals. People with a corporate memory. The people with the knowledge of the product, the market. The DNA of the company, quite often. Particularly, well established companies. If you don’t actually get the heartbeat and the pulse of the company, you could be a long time kind of running up against the wall and trying to figure out why things don’t happen. And then after a while, people need a chance. You need to clarify for them what you think you need from them and listen to what they think themselves and then agree on an approach and move on. If they can’t move on, then move out. You do have to, very seldom, but from time to time, I’m sure you’ve come across it. There are people who are not up for changing. And if you don’t get on the page, well then just get off the page, quite frankly.

*****

“One of the most educational things about life and being older now is confronting yourself with the reality of what you are.”

AC: Again, the variety of industries you’ve been involved in, and looking back on the Anglo role, which clearly didn’t end up well for anybody, did anything emerge out of that that changed your outlook or perspective on how you approach things or businesswise particularly?

GMcG: It goes without saying, it is almost a platitude at this stage, that Anglo was a disaster for an enormous number of people. Particularly the depositors and particularly investors and indeed particularly the fantastic number of people who worked really hard in that organisation. And I think understanding risk in a business, when I said businesses have common themes, the risks in business, I don’t think are necessarily the same. And there are certain businesses that have kind of a complex black-box almost kind of risks that unless you really understand it and almost grow up with it you’re never going to get it. So, for example, I would never have been a huge success running Ericsson because I’m not a technologist. I don’t understand how the digital technology works. I understand the output from it. And by the same token, the whole issue around financial products, financial engineering, deep derivatives and all of the product areas that evolved over time in the financial services sector, which, as you know, the regulators has worked very hard to force much of it to be unravelled, although I suspect I see some of it ravelling again, they were just not understood by a lot of people and certainly by me.

“I keep using sporting analogies maybe it’s Flutter that has me in this mode, you don’t want a team of full-backs.”

AC: So, as a board member, any board member on an organisation where you haven’t come from that area, as in you’re not a specialist. How do board members fulfil their duties without having that innate understanding of the industry?

GMcG: I don’t think every board member needs to have it. I think you need to make sure that board members have it. Even though I ran a paper packaging business for almost 15/16 years and was in it for almost 20, we made sure, and I made sure, because when we got an IPO in 2007, Tony Smurfit, myself and one or two others were the ones who put the board together. And we put it together with people who actually understood the industry. We also had people who didn’t but they actually understood the markets, people who understood finance, people who understood people. What you need. I keep using sporting analogies maybe it’s Flutter that has me in this mode, you don’t want a team of full-backs. You don’t want a team of full-forwards. You don’t want a team of mid-fielders. But, you do need to have a number of people who understand how it all comes together and that can identify the signals early enough to deal with them and not to leave it until it’s too late.

AC: Which is what happened, do you think, in the Anglo scenario?

GMcG: And if you look at any business collapse or failure, it’s always in hindsight, you can find the signals and the signs in hindsight. I was very friendly with a wonderful friend of mine who died sadly quite young called Hugh Cooney. He was the youngest receiver, liquidator and then the youngest examiner in this country ever. He had an incredible eye and nose for finding issues that were going to downstream cause problems. And he coached and mentored that a lot of businesses out of trouble.

 AC: Do you think it’s possible to learn that?

GMcG: I think you need a massively inquisitive and curious mind. There is no such thing, in my view, as a man or a woman for all seasons. I think we all do have a particular leaning. One of the most educational things about life and being older now is confronting yourself with the reality of what you are. Self-delusion is a terrible from of delusion. Whatever about confusing everybody else, if you confuse yourself you’re in real trouble. And sometimes you need to fail to figure that out. I think the one thing about failure is trying to learn from it.

*****

“Nobody is totally masochistic, but I think if you have a portfolio of interests it’s well worthwhile to try and take on some that are more challenging.”

AC: You’ve moved on to a number of other areas. You took on the Aryzta job perhaps at a time when maybe you didn’t know what was coming around the corner in terms of the share performance and whatever. How difficult is it to take on that position and then have to deal with an incident that you’re really not expecting?

GMcG: I knew there were plenty of challenges. I didn’t know the extent of them. I certainly didn’t know the ones that came down the road. But I do genuinely believe this, that there’s not an awful lot of point in getting involved in or taking on a role at my stage in life, or at any stage in life quite frankly, where it’s in great shape and flying.

AC: No challenge.

GMcG: What do you add? Do you any value? Kevin Toland who runs it, an absolute fantastically positive, driven and experienced man. This is his mantra as well. That is: ‘We can make a difference. We should be able to make a difference.’ It’s challenging but making progress on the challenges is rewarding. And also, helping make something better for people who struggled with it for a while and not being able to do so.

AC: So, you don’t just go for the easy ones?

GMcG: Well, nobody volunteers and nobody is totally masochistic, but I think if you have a portfolio of interests it’s well worthwhile to try and take on some that are more challenging. It’s like what you’re doing in terms of taking on NGO type work and not for profits. These are tough areas to operate in, as you know. And if people wanted to solve life, they wouldn’t do it.

AC: Moving on to Flutter. Clearly, it’s a very different proposal in terms of a newish industry, almost creating it. The book is being written as we speak. There isn’t a legacy there of an industry that has all of regulation and reach across the markets globally. So how does it feel to be part of something, that you have an opportunity to write that book?

GMcG: In digital terms in the online world, this is only about 15 years old as an industry. So, it is incredibly young. And from that point of view, it is hugely interesting because it’s certainly probably one of the few… I wasn’t in Gilbeys Group in the early days of Baileys. I was in the mid-years of Baileys. But even then that was fascinating to see how a global brand of such stature can grow in a small island economy like this. And in many ways, Flutter has similarities. But again, the credit goes to people with the vision back in the early 2000s who IPOed it on the one hand, but more importantly actually saw the online opportunities at times when people were scratching their heads and went for it and led the charge on it and made the right calls. And people would say, ‘was that fortuitous or not?’ I don’t think so at all. When I look at the people who were around in the days when those calls were made, they were incredibly inspired. So, Stewart Kenny, Patrick Kennedy, Cormac Barry, Brian Corcoran.

“I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, based on our own analysis, for the vast majority of our customers and people in this space, it’s entertainment.”

AC: I note that Flutter is Flutter Entertainment, as opposed to the gambling end of things. Is the strategy to reach into new markets on the entertainment side and follow with the gambling piece? Particularly in the US?

GMcG: Yeah. Terms can be very pejorative. First of all, Flutter Entertainment is a company Betfair bought many years ago and we were setting up an overarching name for a company that has multiple brands and we were basically disenfranchising some of them by calling it Paddy Power Betfair, which was just two companies put together. But it was two of those separate brands. So that’s the first thing. I describe it as the Diageo of our space. So, I can remember when Diageo was named and people scratched their heads and said what the hell is this?

AC: No one could pronounce it to start with.

GMcG: Exactly. Nobody could pronounce it. So, that’s the first point. I think the second point is, by and large, for the people who are interested in sports betting and gaming, it is entertainment. The vast majority. And one of the things we as an industry, and the various authorities, need to get much, much better at is sensible, grounded and accurate research around issues like addiction and issues like problem gambling and so on. But, I can tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, based on our own analysis, for the vast majority of our customers and people in this space, it’s entertainment. The issue then comes down to there are people with addictive tendencies in all sorts of ways. Whether it’s sugar or chocolate, booze, gambling,

AC: The question of addiction, and many of us would have read Tony O’Reilly’s book in relation to his scenario where he lost a significant amount of other people’s money. How do you see the regulation side working with the commercial side? Is there any opportunity of a hand in hand on that or is it going to be an ‘us and them’ as the industry moves forward?

GMcG: First of all, we’re on the record on this. In fact, we’ve worked very closely with the authorities in Ireland and we obviously were regulated in the UK. We’re regulated in a number of countries. But we believe there are sectors and places that absolutely benefit from regulation. In fact, there are many places. I was speaking to somebody else on this yesterday. Good regulation is beneficial to everybody. It’s beneficial to business. And quite frankly, if business doesn’t thrive, society in this country doesn’t thrive because we’ve no other source of income. And there is no question also to my mind that an antagonistic relationship between regulators or licencers or whatever they call themselves, without it, there’s no progress, really. It’s a lose/lose. And there is equally the case that we as an industry, it’s still very young, but it has grown very rapidly and we haven’t done remotely as well as we should have in terms of this area. And we’ve had to learn very, very rapidly.

AC:  The UK introduction of regulation around the use of credit cards, that hasn’t been adopted here yet. Is that something that…

GMcG: No. But, I mean, nothing has been adopted here yet. One of the challenges in regulation is, in any business… I had a regulator in the aviation business I was on both sides with. I actually ran an airline that was regulated by the regulator and I was chairman of the airport. And the regulator and the participants need to actually understand what they’re about. My argument about the aviation regulator is that airlines have a very short-term horizon. Airlines go bust regularly. Airport authorities are basically investing in the strategic future of a country. Take the current battle, out in Dublin airport, and I’ll come back to the gambling in a moment. There’s a battle going on as to what’s the appropriate reward level for passenger charges. Dublin Airport, with that money, basically effectively funding huge capital developments. There is no question that this country needs strategic enhancements, whether it’s roads, etc. We know that, and we’ve got better than we used to be. We built a lot of airports all around this country instead of building roads and rail and most of them are never going to be viable. I keep saying to people when I was chairman of the airport, we were getting killed by airlines and by the regulator around Terminal 2.

“In the sports betting and gaming business, the real issue is whether it’s a principles based regulation, regulatory environment or a rules based.”

AC: It was going to be a white elephant. That was the view at the time. That you were never going to fill it.

GMcG: And what do people think now? It’s full. So, regulation, it’s not easy, but they need to walk that line.

In the sports betting and gaming business, the real issue is whether it’s a principles based regulation, regulatory environment or a rules based. And quite frankly, the gambling and sports betting in the old world is yonks old. And if you’re bringing that into the new world with new entrants, and so on, and trying to get people to adopt principles that are commonly held, it’s hopeless.

AC: It’s the wild west really.

GMcG: Yeah. So, what you need is a rules based one, which basically levels the playing pitch, clarifies the rules and then holds people to account. And we’ve no problem with that at all. In fact, quite the contrary, we would welcome it.

AC: And you would be leading in terms of adopting some of the more difficult measures?

GMcG: On the credit card one, the industry collectively is only now getting together. I think Peter Jackson of Flutter deserves a lot of credit for this. Breon Corcoran started it but Peter has taken it an enormous way forward to try and engage a number of the big guys. Trying to get everybody just.. life isn’t like that.

To identify the factors that we need to sign up for and get ahead of the curb on and start progressively volunteering or engaging or agreeing with the regulators. Credit cards is one that was agreed by the industry and the regulator just got out before the industry. The opposite to that was the FOBT in the UK. This fixed all betting terms in elements of the industry but with huge vested interests in them. We had some but nothing like the same. And we eventually came out and said, look, would you do it?

AC: It’s the right thing.

GMcG: It’s the rules, just coming back to the rules. Just make a decision and get on with it. It was destroying the image of the industry.

AC: So, on that image piece, we’ve seen some moves afoot. Looking at the reputational aspects, to take things like brand names off jerseys in some of the soccer and related sports. How do you rehabilitate the reputational aspect of improve it or is it just something you stay away from?

GMcG: No, I think we have to. First and foremost, people will gamble irrespective of whether it’s legal or illegal. The US for many years has had thriving illegal gambling. So, there’s no taxes paid, etc, etc. All the worst of the behaviour that people are fearful of. Like most things in life, it’s far better to put it above ground and legalise it and regulate it than to have it underground. I think that’s accepted. It’s like the old alcohol prohibition days in the States. The States has tried both ways and they’re back to regulating it as we see in our industry.

But I think there is no question or doubt in this day and age, particularly with the young recipe book…

“Like most things in life, it’s far better to put it above ground and legalise it and regulate it than to have it underground.”

AC: That is the issue, about the accessibility online, because kids from the age of 8 or 9 have a smartphone in their hand. How do you keep that protection in place?

GMcG: Well, first of all, it’s illegal to bet under 18. Secondly, we don’t allow it. But we don’t have a common identity card here in this country. We do in the UK. So, we’re able to identify and get access to other people and see are they who they say they are and whether they’re the age they say they are.

But there is another thing here that we need to be careful of. This is not my major point, but it’s a point that sometimes gets lost. And that’s the kind of the nanny state approach. There’s personal responsibility here as well. I was speaking at an event recently and somebody said, “I love Paddy Power, love the mischief”, and so on. “And my son, absolutely loves it.” And I said, “what age is your son?” He said 15. I said, “How can he love it?” He was saying that he loves to bet with him. He says, “I give him my phone.” I said, “you know it’s illegal, number one. But number two, he’s 15, for God’s sake. What are you doing?”

AC: But if you’ve got that brand name on the jersey of a Premier League football team or a League of Ireland team or whatever, the audience is clearly, a lot of it, is a young audience. How does that avoid that younger group getting exposed to it in that sense?

GMcG: Well, I think the first point is that we don’t have our name on any jerseys. In fact, we sponsor clubs not to put the name on the jerseys. We had this mischief thing. But you see, again this is back to the point, it’s not enough for us not to do it. We have to find a way that gets the industry to sign up for the things that are not appropriate. I think you’ll find that that will start to evolve. Having said that, one of the biggest players in the world in this space are Bet365 and effectively Stoke City Football Club would be bankrupt without them. They wouldn’t exist. So, it’s never as black and white as it seems. But there is far too much advertising. There’s far too much in people’s faces, far too much visible to younger people. And so we’ve voluntary watersheds around advertising before and after games. And it’s evolving. Industries are talking to one another and to the regulator about where’s the right place to land on this.

AC: And is there an opportunity now that the industry is starting to coalesce on things, even though it’s fiercely competitive and everybody is trying to get a toehold in new markets? Is there really an opportunity to work together on that?

GMcG: Yeah, The analogy I use, I was in the drinks industry when Portman Group was established where the drinks industry was very much in this space where governments were basically about to take serious action against them and sanctions on them and so on. And the Protman Group came together, in fact, my boss at the time was one of the four CEOs that actually undertook it, and I actually had a meeting with our CEO at the time in Flutter to talk to him about the early years of that. And we have now collectively as an industry established what’s called a betting and gaming council, headed by a woman called Brigid Simmonds, who is a very, very strong, capable, influential woman. Independent as could be. And that’s one of the key ingredients, that you have somebody who’s not basically in the pocket of the industry, but of the industry and holding the industry to account in terms of its mission to get out ahead on this type of stuff.

“At the end of the day, we have to satisfy the Competition Authority.”

AC: Moving on to the US, because it’s clearly the new frontier in terms of online gaming. If I’m right, the different states are taking different approaches. And you’re positioning yourself to be active in those states as they come on board in terms of the legal issues. Again, you’ve mentioned risk. It’s a huge risk to pick the right ones and to get yourself in a position where you’re ready to capitalise on the legislation as it changes. Have you built almost another division over there to address that?

GMcG: Yeah. Early mover advantage is huge in business. So, we moved very quickly. This industry knew that it was only probably a matter of time before, what was called PASPA, was repealed in 1994, it was a piece of federal legislation. When it came, it came all of a sudden. Everybody was kind of saying it will come, but we didn’t realise it would come that quickly. So, we moved and we bought a company called FanDuel, which is a was a daily fantasy sports business, which is not a betting business. People build their teams.

AC: So, it was a of way of gaining a toehold in terms of acquisition of customers?

GMcG: It was customers, who might or might not want to take bets on games as well. And the two are sitting side by side. The daily fantasy sport is still doing fine. But some of those people want to have a flutter. We have a majority in this business, aligned with Boyd Gaming, who have casinos around the country, with the legitimate end of what was historically a business that was somewhat frowned upon because people tended to own them. And we’re building that slowly but surely. And we’ve just announced the merger with Stars Group.

AC: That’s been taken by the regulator as a question.

GMcG: No, no, no. The media are wonderful at times. Effectively, what the media are writing is that we have been called in for a review. It’s of a size where it was always going to be required to be approved and by seven or eight jurisdictions. A few have already passed. A few won’t and they take a longer term.

AC: You don’t expect them all to go through?

GMcG: Well, we’re engaged with them. We don’t know whether they will all go through or not. We obviously, in terms of doing a deal like this, we’ve looked at it and we’ve taken advice. But at the end of the day, we have to satisfy the Competition Authority.

AC: We’ve seen in other sectors, in the UK particularly, Sainsburys have had a difficult scenario.

GMcG: And the JustEat one is obviously in there and obviously ASDA.

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“It’s very difficult to declare any economy successful if the very young aren’t being looked after and the very old aren’t being looked after.”

AC: Ok Gary, we’ve gone around the world there on a few different organisations. Looking back closer to home, what do you see as the major challenges and opportunities generally in Irish business at the moment, given where we are at the moment, geographically, global business wise, Brexit, all of that? How are you feeling in terms of the sentiment?

GMcG: I think first and foremost, despite what will always be, I suppose, an element of dissatisfaction of where we’re at, as a small island economy on the west coast of Europe with no natural resources whatsoever except people, we’re in a phenomenally good place now. Sadly, our model isn’t working as well as it should in the sense that everybody should feel a certain share in that. And if the model was working perfectly, you have businesses creating wealth and being taxed and the tax being redistributed through either welfare or investments in infrastructure and the public sector and services.

AC: What are the broken elements, do you think?

GMcG: I think the broken elements from me are twofold. It’s very difficult to declare any economy successful if the very young aren’t being looked after and the very old aren’t being looked after. So, if we have children who are bounced around from Billy to Jack because parents can’t afford early school activity, Montessori, creche or some other factor. And then if you have older people on trolleys in hospitals, it’s very hard to say this is a thriving economy. And then the piece in the middle that frightens me more than those, I do mean in the here and now, because they are not acceptable, is the deterioration in the investment in the education sector, particularly at the advanced learning higher third level. Where we’re just going down and down and the damage done in the world you’re in. Brands lose their image in an insidious way and when you discover it’s happened, it’s too late. It’s almost impossible to rebuild.

Einstein’s theory of insanity prevails. If we keep doing the same thing in the hope of a different outcome, that is the absolute definition of insanity. And I think that’s what we’ve been doing.

Gary McGann

The benefits of the education system and the qualified people and the analysis that has come out of the education system in this country is the real differentiator, not taxes and tax rates. They are important. But if you talk to any of the big international companies who are here it’s the people, and the talent, and the mobility, and the attitude. And part of Europe, and English speaking. And the thing that really worries me most about that environment is, understandably because of it, in a democratic society, people get disillusioned and therefore they start voting tactically rather than strategically, and we end up without government.

Remember, democracy in my life was meant to be a system whereby the people exercise their franchise by electing a party into government with a mandate to do what they said they’d do and they re-elected them if they did it and they fired them if they didn’t. We haven’t had a single party government in probably 30 odd years. Probably won’t again. And when you don’t then, if they’re aligned you probably get decent policy, that’s normally roughly around the same. But if they’re misaligned and if they’re fragmented beyond belief, you get compromised left, right and centre. In the last government, we’ve had less legislation passed probably than ever in the history of this democracy. And in the world that’s moving at a fair pace, our society is expecting more from government. They’re damned if they do, damned if they don’t. And I think the disillusionment grows.

As I said to you before-hand there’s examples internationally were the people take a view that anybody would be as good as the current crowd. And then they discover it’s not. So, you look at Greece, they’ve tried it. You look at Spain, they’ve tried it. You look at Venezuela, it’s a disaster. So, there’s evidence all over the place that even though the centrist type parties are the parties that have had a franchise in the past, if they’re not delivering, going extreme doesn’t deliver either.

AC: That model then, clearly the business approach would be to do what differently?

GMcG: The thing that’s needed, no matter which eyes you’re looking at this from, is where we’re not, if I take, I won’t go party specific, but somebody who has a policy that says, ‘in an economy dependant on business that’s mobile, and particularly in the modern business world, and we’re going to tax business more. We’re going to tax the people who are working in the business more and we’re going to spend that tax on the things that are not working. Do they think mobile business and mobile people are going to stay around for that? Not a chance.

“I chair Sisks and we’re trying to build houses but we can’t get access to the land to build houses. And we’re not developers.”

AC: So, where do you find that resource, that revenue to improve the services, improve the outcomes for the individuals?

GMcG: I think there are a couple of things. I think the first place and most obvious place, and it hasn’t really improved or changed all that much in my view in the 30 years since I was running a semi-state, is if you look at the per capita expenditure, or the absolute expenditure, in some of these areas relative to comparable internationally, we are spending a lot of money. In health we are spending a serious amount of money. It’s no revelation to you to hear me saying that is not working. It’s broken. And the people say so. Why can’t people fix this? The truth of the matter is, if the health system, and this is not a good analogy, but if it was a business and it wasn’t working, to the extent it wasn’t, you would base it, you either give up the business and start a new business that will work better. But you do something dramatic.

This evolution around kind of incrementalism and trying to push more money into something that’s actually clearly not efficient and working, that’s nothing to do with the frontline it’s to do with the overhead and the backline. Look at housing, we basically stopped building houses for about five or six years. People didn’t stop procreating. Children didn’t stop growing. Families didn’t stop getting married and having children. I mean, how did we think we could get off that easy? But then when we realise it, we actually go about it incrementally and we have all sorts of compliance with European regulators, all sorts of excuses as to why we can’t do things the way we need to do them, which is rapidly, efficiently, and there is a very competitive offering out there. I chair Sisks and we’re trying to build houses but we can’t get access to the land to build houses. And we’re not developers. We don’t want to buy the land. We’ll build on anybody’s land. We’ll build cost efficiently at a price that people can afford.

AC: There’s obviously challenges out there that you’re still open for, after quite a number of different areas. Is there any other ambitions for the future that you’re looking to get involved in? You’re clearly politically engaged. If you were to be approached to head up the Tsar for the health group or the Tsar for building, would anything like that interest you?

GMcG: I think I’m too old. I certainly think there must be an opportunity to tap into the experience or brains of people from the private side. There is a great hesitation to engage public private in public related activities on the basis that the private are not accountable. They don’t have to answer to either government or the electorate. I’ve huge sympathy for that. There’s no tougher a career than somebody who basically has to face the firing squad every four or five years. Let’s not forget that. But, Einstein’s theory of insanity prevails. If we keep doing the same thing in the hope of a different outcome, that is the absolute definition of insanity. And I think that’s what we’ve been doing. I don’t see any evidence to the contrary in some of these key areas.

AC: Are you hopeful we can change that?

GMcG: I think we have to. To be honest with you I think the consequences of not doing so are enormous. Forget about where we live for the moment, if you were looking at this from abroad and saying, here’s an environment where there’s 600 or 700 people on trolleys, in some cases extremely sick, they pay their taxes for years, they pay their social welfare for years, and you’ve got young married people where they’ve got two young kids, they’ve got two to jobs, elderly parents, one on the trolley in the hospital, with two kids and trying to find a minder for them or they can’t afford one. That won’t last. Something will happen. Civil unrest doesn’t come from the impoverished, it comes from the people who have actually paid their dues, believe they actually have earned the right to have at least access to what a half developed normal society would give them.

AC: So, if you had one message, just to finish on this, for the incoming government of whatever hue they may be, what would it be?

GMcG: I think regain the trust of the people that things can improve. It won’t improve overnight, but evidence of improvement. And I think the problem at the moment is there’s no evidence of improvement.

AC: On that note, thank you very much Gary McGann.

GMcG: Thanks Alison.

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