Why Irish Executives Should Refrain from Endorsing Political Candidates.

It's not just your job on the line.

So there you are. You’ve suited up, you’ve boned up on your corporate speak about ‘synergising forward-looking paradigms,’ and you’re ready to sell your soul to that most peculiar of Hibernian beasts: the commercial semi-state. This entity believes it’s possible to be a little bit capitalist and a little bit statist at the same time. You walk into the panel. And it’s not your usual trio of bored HR drones and a man whose sole personality is his tie. No. This is an Irish parable. Seated before you, like a tribunal that’s just run out of other people to make findings against, is a veritable coalition of the unwilling: a Shinner, a Soc-Dem, and a Labourite. One wants to nationalise your shoes, the other wants to apologise for your shoes’ problematic history, and the third looks tired from carrying the guilt of your shoes for the last hundred years.

They will, with all the grim efficiency of an Offaly man stacking turf, run through your qualifications. Your experience. What you can “bring…