Tag Archives: David McCourt

HE’S A self made multi-millionaire who is leading one of the country’s biggest infrastructure projects, but when one speaks to David McCourt it’s apparent he’s not solely interested in the issues faced by the 1%. Mr McCourt is chairman of National Broadband Ireland (NBI) and when he talks about connecting the country, it’s very clear that he’s interested in its potential for redressing rural-urban imbalance, taking the sting out of the runaway property market, and saving villages from a death spiral. The Tradaree building in Newmarket on Fergus hosted a board meeting of NBI last week, and Mr McCourt said he wanted to give a message to those attending. “This is to demonstrate to my board that everything needs to be rethought. We’ll have our board dinner in Meals on Wheels, which will be transformed for the night. It’ll be a physical representation of how everything needs to be rethought. “Meals on Wheels are rethinking food waste, a high percentage …

Non-profit organisation looks to harness power of connectivity to breathe life into rural communities NEWMARKET resident and National Broadband Ireland chairman David McCourt has launched a new non-profit organisation the Rise Global Foundation. The goal of the organisation is to support businesses and social enterprises, seeking to combine an entrepreneurial mindset with technology to create jobs and pride of place. Last week in Newmarket, Mr McCourt said he wants the new foundation to help rural communities build on the opportunities that the provision of broadband is giving them. “I’ve seen how Newmarket has changed over the last 20 years, we used to have seven shops, now we have one supermarket. We used to have two bakeries, now we have none, we used to have two butchers now we have one. We used to have a woman’s clothing store on the corner. “If you go back 50 or 60 years we used to have a movie theatre. A lot of things …

ON Tuesday evening, hours after he signed off on a deal worth billions and as news bulletins showed him with the Taoiseach, David McCourt was shovelling coal onto the fire in O’Neill’s bar in Newmarket-on-Fergus and drinking tea. He was enjoying some respite after a marathon couple of days concluding a saga that began in July 2015. It was a bruising process, which saw the resignation of Minister Denis Naughten following news that he had met with Mr McCourt as he pursued the contract. Getting to Tuesday was not easy and McCourt explained he was not happy with some of the things said about him throughout it. “Everyone called us the last man standing, we were the last man willing to stand, we’re the last one capable of standing.” Some of the reportage left a lot to be desired, he felt. “They have their job to do, they have to sell newspapers. I can’t fault them for doing their job. …

NEWMARKET-on-Fergus based David McCourt, the man behind the company that has won the contract for the National Broadband Plan, has said he was unfairly labelled in the media during the selection process. He has also said that criticism of the cost of the contract failed to take into account of certain inescapable realities and that rural broadband provision can finally revitalise long-struggling areas of the country. On Tuesday, just hours after the deal was finally concluded, Mr McCourt, who heads up National Broadband Ireland, bypassed interview requests from the national media but met with The Clare Champion in his local pub, O’Neill’s, in the heart of Newmarket. He was warmly congratulated by the pub’s staff on arrival. It was an unlikely place to find a man whose company had concluded a deal with the Irish State potentially worth €3bn. On a local level, the National Broadband Plan will see €89 million invested in Clare, with 22,342 homes and businesses to …

  Minister of State Pat Breen has become embroiled in controversy after it emerged he arranged for former Communications Minister Denis Naughten to attend a dinner with a key bidder in the national broadband process. The Clare Deputy has also outlined he had met Irish-American businessman, David McCourt on a number of occasions in his role as minister of state. Minister Naughten resigned from cabinet yesterday over revelations he met four times with Mr McCourt, the only bidder who is still involved in the national broadband plan process. In a statement issued last night, Minister Breen has outlined meetings he had with David McCourt, the key bidder in the broadband procurement process, and has said he knows him “on a personal basis”. The Minister of State with responsibility for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection, he has “ no role in the National Broadband Plan, its rollout or its procurement”. “In my role as Minister of …

HE grew up in working-class South Boston in a home with nine people to one bathroom, but a glittering career has seen David McCourt amass an estimated fortune of $1 billion. The Irish Times described him as “the most successful Irish American tech businessman you’ve never heard of”, and his company Enet has been chosen to finally roll out the national broadband plan. Now the Boston entrepreneur, who has a house in Newmarket-on-Fergus where he spends much of his time, has written a book explaining what he feels people need to do to succeed in a fast-changing world. McCourt has obviously enjoyed a huge amount of success himself, giving him a certain amount of gravitas when it comes to the subject of his book, Total Rethink. The 60-year-old says people need to make the most of all their abilities, and shouldn’t confine their expectations of themselves. “I’ve made a career, and a life, on being both left- and right-brained and …