As recently as 2007, the Irish economy was still booming and the state coffers overflowing; by the end of 2008, the state faces an unprecedented crisis. The story of the Irish banking collapse is a tawdry tale of collusion, back-scratching and denial among bankers, developers, regulators and politicians. This is the story Shane Ross - independent Senator, long-time champion of citizens against misbehaving corporations, and Journalist of the Year 2009 - tells in The Bankers, going behind the scenes and the headlines to explain what happened, how it happened and who made it happen. They're all here: Sean FitzPatrick, Michael Fingleton and the other bank bosses; Patrick Neary and his colleagues in Ireland's failed regulatory apparatus; the property developers, whose borrowings ruined the banks, and many of whom are now personally ruined; and the politicians, whose policies helped inflate the property bubble and who have allowed the banks to dictate the terms of their bail-out. Shane Ross knows the stories of these people and what they got up to, and in The Bankers he makes sense of a scandal that will haunt Ireland for years to come.

During the years when all seemed well with the Irish economy, a scandal bloomed in front of our faces but went mostly unnoticed: the scandal of public waste. Vast overspending on infrastructure (including a number of white elephants), extravagant use of overpriced consultants, the creation of dozens of quangos whose primary purpose seemed to be jobs for the boys, the culture of junketry that took hold in the semi-state sector and the Oireachtas - these and other dubious practices flourished during the years when the state's coffers were overflowing. The insiders benefited; the rest of us got ripped off. Now, as the state scrambles to bail out the banks and to bring order to the shattered public finances by taking money out of the pockets of ordinary working people, Shane Ross and Nick Webb tell the story of the wasters: the people who perfected and benefited from the culture of cronyism and waste. Thanks in large part to Ross and Webb's journalism in the Sunday Independent exposing scandals in FAS and CIE, we already know part of this story. In Wasters, the authors show how wide and how deep the rot runs, and they show that every scandal has one thing in common: insiders profiting at the expense of ordinary people.

A devastating new exposé from the bestselling authors of The Bankers and Wasters.In March 2011, the Irish people elected a new government. But how much had really changed? In The Untouchables, Shane Ross and Nick Webb shine a light into dark corners of official Ireland to show that the blame for running the country into the ground goes well beyond Fianna Fáil, and that a dismaying number of the people who should share the blame are still in situ: in the civil service, on the boards of the leading companies, and in the banks, law firms, and consultancies that carry so much influence in deciding who wins and who loses. They name names, trace connections, and show how the untouchables managed to do so much damage, how they got away with it, and how so many of them are still in positions of power and influence in Ireland.'Fascinating ... required reading for anyone interested in how crony capitalism and power work in practice in Ireland' Irish Times'The Untouchables is hard to put down. Read it and seethe.' Irish IndependentShane Ross is an independent TD for Dublin South, and columnist in the Sunday Independent. Nick Webb is business editor of the Sunday Independent. They are the authors of Wasters, 2010's top-selling Irish current affairs title.

'Offers a deliciously readable, frequently funny rundown of some of the institution's most colourful misadventures' Sunday Independent'An excellent read. Its thriller-like prose is pacy, its subjects are well-researched' Irish Examiner'Shane Ross brings a sharp eye to the controversy' Irish TimesSince it arrived on the airwaves in 1961, RTÉ has been buffeted in different directions, eventually slipping into a steady decline which accelerated over the past decade into a catastrophe.The 2023 revelations regarding secret payments to star presenter Ryan Tubridy weren't the first time Ireland's national broadcaster has found itself caught up in scandal.Shane Ross, author of #1 bestsellers The Bankers and Mary Lou McDonald, winds back the clock to examine RTÉ's history of broadcasting excellence alongside the accusations of corruption, waste and ineptitude it has faced along the way.With clarity and wit, Ross rakes over RTÉ's colourful past while also considering what the future might hold for this once beloved institution.

The definitive inside account of the 2016-20 coalition government.Cabinet minister Shane Ross reveals the bitter internal battles fought with the old Blueshirts, the crises when the coalition came close to collapse and the sometimes fraught personal relationships between the fifteen figures who made up the last government.He recounts how a group of Independents risked everything to form a government that was expected to last for only months but which ran for more than four years, under two Taoisigh with utterly different styles. With great humour and charm, Ross unveils the skulduggery, the secret deals, the drama of how Irish football was rescued and Olympic chief Pat Hickey toppled, showing us what really happens behind the closed doors of Ireland's government.

As recently as 2007, the Irish economy was still booming and the state coffers overflowing; by the end of 2008, the state faces an unprecedented crisis. The story of the Irish banking collapse is a tawdry tale of collusion, back-scratching and denial among bankers, developers, regulators and politicians. This is the story Shane Ross - independent Senator, long-time champion of citizens against misbehaving corporations, and Journalist of the Year 2009 - tells in The Bankers, going behind the scenes and the headlines to explain what happened, how it happened and who made it happen. They're all here: Sean FitzPatrick, Michael Fingleton and the other bank bosses; Patrick Neary and his colleagues in Ireland's failed regulatory apparatus; the property developers, whose borrowings ruined the banks, and many of whom are now personally ruined; and the politicians, whose policies helped inflate the property bubble and who have allowed the banks to dictate the terms of their bail-out. Shane Ross knows the stories of these people and what they got up to, and in The Bankers he makes sense of a scandal that will haunt Ireland for years to come.

During the years when all seemed well with the Irish economy, a scandal bloomed in front of our faces but went mostly unnoticed: the scandal of public waste. Vast overspending on infrastructure (including a number of white elephants), extravagant use of overpriced consultants, the creation of dozens of quangos whose primary purpose seemed to be jobs for the boys, the culture of junketry that took hold in the semi-state sector and the Oireachtas - these and other dubious practices flourished during the years when the state's coffers were overflowing. The insiders benefited; the rest of us got ripped off. Now, as the state scrambles to bail out the banks and to bring order to the shattered public finances by taking money out of the pockets of ordinary working people, Shane Ross and Nick Webb tell the story of the wasters: the people who perfected and benefited from the culture of cronyism and waste. Thanks in large part to Ross and Webb's journalism in the Sunday Independent exposing scandals in FAS and CIE, we already know part of this story. In Wasters, the authors show how wide and how deep the rot runs, and they show that every scandal has one thing in common: insiders profiting at the expense of ordinary people.

A devastating new exposé from the bestselling authors of The Bankers and Wasters.In March 2011, the Irish people elected a new government. But how much had really changed? In The Untouchables, Shane Ross and Nick Webb shine a light into dark corners of official Ireland to show that the blame for running the country into the ground goes well beyond Fianna Fáil, and that a dismaying number of the people who should share the blame are still in situ: in the civil service, on the boards of the leading companies, and in the banks, law firms, and consultancies that carry so much influence in deciding who wins and who loses. They name names, trace connections, and show how the untouchables managed to do so much damage, how they got away with it, and how so many of them are still in positions of power and influence in Ireland.'Fascinating ... required reading for anyone interested in how crony capitalism and power work in practice in Ireland' Irish Times'The Untouchables is hard to put down. Read it and seethe.' Irish IndependentShane Ross is an independent TD for Dublin South, and columnist in the Sunday Independent. Nick Webb is business editor of the Sunday Independent. They are the authors of Wasters, 2010's top-selling Irish current affairs title.

'Offers a deliciously readable, frequently funny rundown of some of the institution's most colourful misadventures' Sunday Independent'An excellent read. Its thriller-like prose is pacy, its subjects are well-researched' Irish Examiner'Shane Ross brings a sharp eye to the controversy' Irish TimesSince it arrived on the airwaves in 1961, RTÉ has been buffeted in different directions, eventually slipping into a steady decline which accelerated over the past decade into a catastrophe.The 2023 revelations regarding secret payments to star presenter Ryan Tubridy weren't the first time Ireland's national broadcaster has found itself caught up in scandal.Shane Ross, author of #1 bestsellers The Bankers and Mary Lou McDonald, winds back the clock to examine RTÉ's history of broadcasting excellence alongside the accusations of corruption, waste and ineptitude it has faced along the way.With clarity and wit, Ross rakes over RTÉ's colourful past while also considering what the future might hold for this once beloved institution.

The definitive inside account of the 2016-20 coalition government.Cabinet minister Shane Ross reveals the bitter internal battles fought with the old Blueshirts, the crises when the coalition came close to collapse and the sometimes fraught personal relationships between the fifteen figures who made up the last government.He recounts how a group of Independents risked everything to form a government that was expected to last for only months but which ran for more than four years, under two Taoisigh with utterly different styles. With great humour and charm, Ross unveils the skulduggery, the secret deals, the drama of how Irish football was rescued and Olympic chief Pat Hickey toppled, showing us what really happens behind the closed doors of Ireland's government.