This article is from page 16 of the 2006-10-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 16 JPG
SHANNON Development has said that tenants who rent space from them can “conduct their business as they see fit” despite the involvement of two of its former client companies in separate multi-million Euro fraud probes in recent years.
Last week, Clare businessman Dylan Creaven, who ran his company from a Shannon Development subsidised unit in Ennis, paid over €26 million to the Criminal Assets Bureau and the British Asset’s Recovery Agency.
Another company, Smyth Aerospace Ltd, which was raided by gardaí and FBI agents in 2000, also operated its business from a unit owned by Shannon Development.
Shannon Development has declined to comment specifically on the activities of Creaven’s Silicon Technologies or Smyth Aerospace Ltd while they were tenants of the development agency and would only say: “If a client complies with the conditions of tenancy then we must observe their rights as tenants to conduct their business as they see fit.”
While Silicon Technologies Europe Ltd, operated sales offices in Europe, the US and in Asia, its headquarters were based at the Clare Business Centre at Francis Street in Ennis, where Creaven rented two units from Shannon Development.
Silicon Technologies did not however receive any grant funding from the development agency during that time.
Silicon Technologies’ reported turnover for the year 2000/2001 was €416 million in respect of its Irish operation.
Creaven was paying less than £80 a week for the units in Ennis where he employed six people.
Company founder Creaven was arrested on November 19 2002 following a joint British-Irish investigation codenamed “Operation Chipstick”.
Creaven faced two charges of conspiracy to defraud the public revenue of stg£14m.
He spent eleven and half months on remand at Wandsworth Prison but was acquitted on all charges against him in May 2005.
In October 2000, gardaí assisted the FBI when they raided a premises in Shannon also owned by Shannon Development, as part of an investigation into a multi million Euro aircraft parts fraud.
The US authorities had alleged that Joseph Patrick Smyth Jnr was the leader of a criminal enterprise.
The US authorities had sought his extradition from Ireland last year. However Smyth has since fled to France.
Smith’s sons, Joseph Patrick Smyth (III), aged 43, and Thomas Edward Smyth, 39, both of whom lived in Ennis for several years, have already been sentenced to five years probation each in a U.S. court for their part in the fraud.