Shane Ross

In the 31st Dáil he was a member of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee.

Shane Peter Nathaniel Ross (born 11 July 1949) is an Irish former Independent politician who served as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport from May 2016 to June 2020.

Shane Ross was born in Dublin in 1949.

He is the son of former Senator and prominent member of the legal fraternity, John N. Ross, and the noted gardener and writer Ruth Isabel Sherrington.

He was schooled at St Stephen's School, Dundrum, and Rugby School, before attending Trinity College Dublin, where he graduated with a degree in history and political science in 1971.

During his time at Trinity he was the Record Secretary of the College Historical Society.

He was a member of Seanad Éireann for the Dublin University from 1981 to 2011, until his election to Dáil Éireann at the 2011 general election.

He is a former business editor of the Sunday Independent.

He was a Fine Gael Wicklow County Councillor, and a one-time Fine Gael general election candidate in the Wicklow constituency.

He was first elected to the Seanad in 1981, as an Independent candidate for the Dublin University constituency, and was re-elected on nine occasions, becoming the longest-serving member of the house.

He stood unsuccessfully as an Independent candidate at the 1984 European Parliament election, for the Dublin constituency.

At the 1991 local elections, he was elected as a Fine Gael candidate to Wicklow County Council for the Bray local electoral area, and served until 1999.

He stood as a candidate for the party in the Wicklow constituency at the 1992 general election, but did not gain a seat, remaining instead in the Seanad where he once again sat as an Independent Senator following the 1997 election.

He is one of Ireland's most visible business commentators, promoting free enterprise, small government and low taxes, and is widely identified as one of the most visible champions of laissez-faire capitalism in Irish politics, praising former Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy, as a "brilliant Minister in the boom years" and lauded McCreevy's controversial tax individualisation as "visionary".

In 2000, he and Eamon Dunphy championed the case of small shareholders of eircom, after shares in the former state-owned company fell in value by more than a third in just over a year.

Ross took the board of directors to task over the level of salaries, bonuses and fees being paid, and denounced a plan whereby senior management were to get share options at a value below the flotation price.

He was also sharply critical of the decision to sell the mobile phone arm Eircell to Vodafone and later sought the dismissal of 5 board members at the March 2001 AGM, citing poor share price performance and poor acquisitions.

He profited from the boom in Irish land prices, selling his home at Carrickmines to a developer in 2004 for an estimated €4 million to €4.5 million an acre; however, he subsequently bought a house in Enniskerry, County Wicklow, for €6.2 million in 2005.

Despite labelling himself as one of Ireland's foremost business commentators his record as a stock picker is mixed: as he noted himself, "my record when a stockbroker was so bad that Dermot Desmond rightly gave me my P45. ...if any readers are beginning to take me seriously, remember it was I who advised people to sell First Active Shares when they went public and subsequently quadrupled and it was I who told innocent investors not to touch Ryanair shares with a barge pole at the flotation. They rocketed."

Ross promotes himself as standing up for small shareholders and consumers.

At a shareholders' meeting in May 2005, Ross highlighted the monopolistic practices of tolling agency NTR plc.

In 2007, Ross praised Sean Quinn's purchase of a stake in "anti-establishment Anglo Irish Bank" and referred to Quinn as "this genius... [who] has combined being a champion of the customer with making a mint", describing Quinn Direct as "the most successful insurance business in Ireland".

Ross persisted in drawing attention to the issue, criticising the National Roads Authority in August 2008, for its inadequate and confusing management of the M50 barrier-free tolling system, and was reported in The Sunday Times of London as having declared that "the removal of the barrier should have been cause for celebration. Instead, we have higher tolls, an administrative mess and pending chaos".

The packaging conglomerate Smurfit Group, small shareholdings in which were held by many Irish investors, has also been a frequent target for Ross, specifically its high executive pay, poor shareholder returns, and alleged nepotism and cronyism.

Prior to the Irish financial crisis he was a persistent critic of the performance of Bank of Ireland, of which he was a shareholder.

He contrasted the conservative performance of the "establishment" Bank of Ireland with other financial institutions, notably Irish Nationwide Building Society (INBS) and Anglo Irish Bank (Anglo) which he praised.

In his Sunday Independent column he described Michael Fingleton's Irish Nationwide as publishing "a cracking set of figures... he even leaves superstar Sean Fitzpatrick's Anglo Irish standing".

In another column, he dismissed shareholder critics of Fingleton, notably Brendan Burgess, and contrasted the small shareholder rebellions of eircom, Smurfit and First Active with that of the INBS, the CEO of which, he claimed, "despite all his abrasiveness, was delivering small riches to them", Ross dismissed the corporate governance concerns of Fingleton's critics, writing "for all his faults, has delivered the only thing that matters in business: profit".

In his article on Pernod Ricard executive Richard Burrows' appointment as the Governor of the Bank of Ireland, Ross claimed it was mainly due to Burrows' social status as a "toff" and criticised the bank for not even interviewing the "far too dynamic" Sean Fitzpatrick, then CEO of Anglo Irish Bank.

In April 2008, Ross revealed that a group of Anglo customers were planning to launch a leveraged fund to buy Anglo shares to "squeeze" the Anglo "short sellers" whom Ross blamed for the collapse in the Anglo share price.

Ross had been briefed by a member of the group, and quoted him saying "We are going to teach the brokers and hedge funds that damaged the bank a salutary lesson... They will come out of this with their fingers burned"; the episode became known as the Maple 10 and cost Anglo and ultimately the taxpayer €451 million.

As leverage for the Anglo share purchase was provided by Anglo, this coordinated action would have constituted market abuse.

In the aftermath of the voters' rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in its first referendum in June 2008, in spite of support for the treaty by the major political parties, Ross highlighted the "disconnect" between the ruling caste of the nation's politicians and the democratic will of the public.

A stockbroker with NCB, Ross was Business Editor of the Sunday Independent, Ireland's biggest-selling weekend broadsheet, until his election to the Dáil in 2011, when he resigned from the post.

He is married to Ruth Buchanan, a former presenter and journalist with RTÉ, Ireland's national broadcaster.

His son-in-law is Nick Webb, who succeeded him as Business Editor of the Sunday Independent.

Ross was also a trenchant critic of the under-performance of the Irish Pension Funds, and contrasted their performance with the SVM Global's Saltire Fund, the hedge fund which he chaired; however, in 2013, the Saltire Fund revealed a large loss of 32.4% during a period in which global stock markets had gained 17.7%.

He co-founded the Independent Alliance with Michael Fitzmaurice in 2015.

He was a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Rathdown constituency from 2016 to 2020, and previously from 2011 to 2016 for the Dublin South constituency.

He was re-elected to the 32nd Dáil, and subsequently appointed by Taoiseach Enda Kenny as Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport in May 2016.