Leading Kinahan cartel figure Sean McGovern being extradited from UAE to Ireland
Sean McGovern, one of the senior figures in the
Kinahan cartel
based in Dubai, is being extradited from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after a court there sanctioned the move.
The Dubliner is expected to be back in Ireland imminently and was on a Defence Forces flight on Wednesday evening.
McGovern is expected to arrive on the flight into Dublin tomorrow, with the journey back to Ireland a protracted one due to stops for refuelling. He is expected to appear before the Special Criminal Court tomorrow and would be remanded in custody pending trial.
He is wanted to face charges in the Republic relating to the Kinahan-Hutch feud, including murder and also directing organised crime. He was detained in Dubai last October and has been in custody there ever since.
READ MORE
McGovern is the first senior cartel figure to be extradited from Dubai, and that will now increase confidence about the UAE being willing to also act against cartel founder Christy Kinahan snr and his sons, Daniel and Christopher.
McGovern, a Dubliner who was injured in the Regency Hotel shooting in 2016, is wanted in the State to face charges over the December 2016 murder of Noel Kirwan, an innocent man gunned down because he was linked to the Hutch family, some of whom were friends of his.
McGovern (38), who was arrested in the early hours of Thursday. October 10th, at his home in Dubai, was one of seven leading figures in the Kinahan cartel sanctioned by the US authorities in 2022.
He had been living openly in Dubai in recent years, apparently in the belief he would not be arrested.
The authorities in UAE had no extradition agreements with the European Union or individual member states, a factor that has drawn many leading criminals to Dubai from all over Europe. However, McGovern's extradition is taking place as part of once-off arrangement. Since his arrest an extradition treaty having been put in place for future cases involving Irish criminals.
McGovern was in 2022 described by the US Department of the Treasury as '
Daniel Kinahan
's adviser and closest confidant'. It added: 'evidence indicates that all dealings with Daniel Kinahan go through Sean McGovern.'
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Irish Times
2 hours ago
- Irish Times
‘I'm not even a bit stressed,' Honor goes, ‘I haven't done a focking tap for these exams'
Sorcha thinks we should maybe check on Honor and there's an air of definite excitement in her voice when she says it? Yeah, no, it's the night before the stort of the Leaving Cert and my wife is absolutely determined that this should be one of those mother-daughter moments. She goes, 'The Leaving Cert puts – oh my God – so much pressure on young people. But it's not the be-all and end-all. I read an orticle online about all the famous people who failed the Leaving Cert.' I'm there, ' I failed the Leaving Cert – in fairness to me.' She's like, 'I'm talking about people who went on to actually achieve things?' READ MORE And I'm there, 'Yeah, no, thanks for that, Sorcha.' 'I just remember that – oh my God – my Mom had this amazing, amazing talk with me the night before I storted mine ? She just said, you know, the importance of exams is, like, totally overblown and that the Leaving Cert shouldn't define you for the rest of your life.' 'That's easy for you to say. Didn't you get, like, maximum points?' 'Well, not quite maximum points? I got, like, a B in Honours English, remember?' How could I forget? Her old man spent years appealing it. I think the case was still trundling through the courts when she was pregnant with Honor. 'Come on,' she goes, 'let's go and talk to her,' and I follow her up the stairs to Honor's room. Sorcha knocks and she's like, 'Honor, dorling?' then she pushes the door and looks around it like she's sticking her head in a lion's mouth. Honor isn't studying. That's the first thing I notice. She's sorting through her wardrobe and taking photographs of herself in various outfits with one hand on her hip and her cheeks sucked in. Sorcha goes, 'We're sorry to bother you, Honor. We were just wondering how the study was going?' I don't know where she's getting this we from? Honor's like, 'It's going great – as you can probably see.' 'Well,' Sorcha goes, 'we just wanted to say that, even though it may seem like it now, the Leaving Certificate is not the be-all and end-all.' I'm there, 'I'm living proof of that, Honor.' But Sorcha's like, 'Why don't you leave the talking to me, Ross? What we're trying to say, Honor – and I'm echoing my own mother's words here – is that it doesn't define you as, like, a person ?' Honor's there, 'Why do I buy so many clothes in taupe? It looks so focking meh on me.' Sorcha goes, 'The important thing – as my mom famously said – is that you turn out a happy, well-adjusted girl with a fully functioning moral compass.' Honor's like, 'Does this top make my face look washed out? You can tell me.' [ Honor goes, 'I'm editing the school yearbook photographs of anyone who pissed me off' Opens in new window ] 'What I'm saying,' Sorcha goes, 'is that our results-focused secondary education system sometimes forgets that schools have a role to play in preparing young people for life and not just exams.' 'I hate all my focking clothes.' 'I was just thinking back to my own Leaving Cert – wasn't I, Ross? At the time, I thought it was the most important thing in the world. But if you were to ask me what did I get in, say, Maths or History now, I'd have to actually rack my brains.' 'Didn't you get As in everything?' Honor goes. I'm like, 'Except English – and her old man spent eight years in the courts trying get her B upgraded.' Honor gives her one of her crocodile smiles and goes, 'So much for results not being important. Anyway, for your information, I'm not even a bit stressed?' I'm like, 'Oh, that's good – isn't it, Sorcha?' And Sorcha's there, 'Er, yeah – I suppose it is.' 'As a matter of fact,' Honor goes, 'I haven't done a focking tap for these exams.' And I'm like, 'I'm going to say fair focks to you, Honor. I think I speak for both of us when I say you've put our minds at ease. Come on, Sorcha, let's leave her to it.' But Sorcha's mind isn't at ease? Outside on the landing, she goes, 'What do you think she meant when she said she hasn't done a tap?' I'm there, 'Excuse me?' 'Like, did she mean it in the same way that I used to say it? Look, I'm not saying I was a secret studier – which is what all the girls used to say about me – but I was, like, naturally bright and I had an amazing, amazing memory.' 'Again, fair focks.' [ Honor is staring at Brett like he's an ATM and she's sitting in a JCB, trying to work the levers Opens in new window ] 'Or was she saying that she hasn't done a tap in the same way that – no offence, Ross – you didn't do a tap, as in, like, literally?' 'What does it matter? The important thing is that she's a happy girl with a fully functioning whatever-you-said.' 'Yes, Ross – but within reason.' 'Within reason?' 'I mean, it's also important that she gets into a good college. And into a degree course that's, like, high points.' 'But I thought you said–' 'Never mind what I said. What the fock is she doing in there?' 'I think she was questioning some of her 2024 wardrobe choices.' She goes, 'Did she even have a book open?' and before I can answer no, she bursts into Honor's room again, with no knock this time, and she's like, 'Why aren't you studying?' Honor goes, 'Excuse me?' Sorcha's there, 'You have an exam tomorrow! Where are your books? Where are your cog notes?' [ 'That picture The Last Supper is weird. They're all sitting on the same side of the table' Opens in new window ] Honor's like, 'I thought you said the Leaving Cert doesn't matter.' Sorcha goes, 'I didn't mean it literally doesn't matter. Oh my God, what happens in the next fortnight is going to shape the rest of your life, Honor! What are you going to do if you don't get into college? Stort an OnlyFans account? Live on the streets? Become a ketamine addict?' Honor looks her in the eye and goes, 'I have to leave the exam an hour early tomorrow. I have, like, a nails appointment?' Sorcha ends up totally flipping out and I have to put my orm around her shoulder and escort her out of there like my old dear being helped out of the prosecco tent at Bloom. She's like, 'You might be fine with having a daughter who fails her Leaving Cert, Ross, but I am not.'
Irish Times
5 hours ago
- Irish Times
The Irish economy grew by 22% over the past year. Yes, you read that right
Ireland's economic data was always going to be a bit special at the start of this year. But Thursday's figures were mind-bending. It is impossible to overstate the extent to which we now stand out in international comparisons. And this is not just a curiosity – it matters. The economy, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) , was 22 per cent larger in the first quarter of 2025 than one year earlier, according to the latest estimates from the Central Statistics Office . Think about it. The figures suggest that for every €1 of activity last year, there was €1.22 in 2025. Even comparing GDP in the first quarter of this year with the last quarter of 2024, there is a rise of close to 10 per cent – this is roughly the extent of growth across the euro zone over the past decade. Of course this bonkers data is not real, in the sense that it does not reflect what is happening in the underlying economy in which we all live. How could it? As has been long discussed the headline economic data is entirely distorted by the activities and tax planning of a small number of very big US tech and pharma companies. From time to time, this has created huge distortions in the figures. A decade ago, top US economist Paul Krugman famously described a 26 per cent GDP growth rate reported for the Irish economy (later revised up to over 30 per cent) as 'leprechaun' economics . At the time the figures were distorted by massive tax-driven investments by the companies concerned, including Apple, essentially a manoeuvre by the companies involved to try to keep their tax bills down as international rules changed. READ MORE Now, as one observer put it, we are seeing another 'Krugman' moment. This time the reasons are different. Big pharma companies have been rushing product over to the US to try to get drugs and key ingredients into the market before Donald Trump announces tariffs on the sector. This has led to a surge in exports, feeding into the GDP data. Many of these are manufactured here – and some are made elsewhere but organised by Irish subsidiaries and so also show up in our figures. And so we see a massive surge in Irish GDP in the first quarter of this year. A big – temporary – decline in pharma exports in GDP will follow at some stage, as the firms involved must now have massive stocks jammed into every free warehouse in the US. Much will depend on how the tariffs story plays out. [ Welcome (back) to the era of Leprechaun economics Opens in new window ] Whether Krugman renews his leprechaun offensive or not, let's not pretend this won't be noticed. Ireland's GDP data is not some irrelevance in a quirky economic corner. The amounts of money being moved through Ireland are now enormous. Daniel Kral, chief economist at Oxford Economics , calculates that Ireland – which accounts for 4 per cent of the euro zone economy – accounted for half its total growth over the past year. Analysts have taken to looking at the figures 'excluding Ireland'. How do we pull back from all of this to judge the underlying health of the economy? Total demand in the domestic economy – adjusted by the CSO to remove the multinational factors - rose just 1 per cent over the year. But we need to look under the surface here, too. Consumer spending, a good measure of how we feel, was up by a decent 2.5 per cent. But the overall figure was dragged down by a fall in business investment, presumably reflecting the international uncertainty. So households continued to spend in the first part of the year, but businesses are taking a wait-and-see approach to big capital spending. This is likely to be reflected in the jobs market as the year goes on – and here AI is also changing the game in many sectors. Consumers may get more cautious too. Uncertainty is starting to slow the economy and this is a trend we need to watch as the year goes on. The piece of data that seemed a bit out of line this week was a 30 per cent fall in corporation tax in May compared with the same month last year. This was affected by the comparison with a strong May last year – which the Department of Finance suggests was boosted by once-off factors. Two of our biggest taxpayers, Pfizer and Microsoft – pay significant amounts of tax that month. But the key early indicator for most of the big companies is June – and what happens here will give a good pointer for the year as a whole. The figures do underline one point. It is our huge reliance on the opaque affairs of four or five massive companies – and our exposure to the sectors they operate in, their own performance and complex decisions on how their tax structures are set up. Our latest bout of data exceptionalism again puts Ireland in the spotlight, when it would have been better to keep the head down. It underlines the outsize take Ireland is getting from pharma and tech activity in the EU – both contentious points in the White House. Notably, the US added Ireland to an economic watch list this week, based on the size of our trade surplus. We are very much on the radar in Washington. Our corporate tax take and manufacturing base are looked on enviously not only from the US , but from elsewhere in Europe. [ 'No long-term commitments to anything' – Ireland's economy is experiencing a silent slowdown Opens in new window ] The advance shipping of products again focuses attention on the scale of activity and tax planning in Ireland by big pharma companies. And this causes a rollercoaster of cyclical activity. But what really counts is longer-term, structural issues. Will these pharma giants decide over time – and it would take years – to relocate some of their production to the US? Will their profits and thus tax payments here be hit by Trump's policies? Or will they – or some of the tech giants – alter their corporate structures so that they pay significantly less tax here? It comes down to whether Trump's policies change the way the economic and corporate world operates fundamentally, a fair bit or not much at all. As Ireland benefits from the current system so much, the more it changes, the more risks there are for us. The coming months will tell a lot.
Irish Daily Mirror
6 hours ago
- Irish Daily Mirror
Swashbuckling giant Kyle Hayes divides opinion like no other GAA star
Of all the high-profile residents holding deeds to one of those prized condos on hurling's Main Street, none comes close to Kyle Hayes in their ability to ignite a wildfire. On or off the pitch, Hayes is the preferred accelerant for social media arsonists seeking to set the online world ablaze. Drop his name — his genius as a sportsman trailed by his deeply unsavoury past — into a conversation and, typically, it has the effect of a Molotov cocktail. Neither the game's alley fighters nor its most dementedly combative figures, not even Ireland's dean of the perpetually highly-strung, the hyper-emotional Davy Fitzgerald, can set summer so instantly aflame as Limerick's skyscraping five-time Allstar. That he was back in court less than 24 hours after last month's Man of the Match masterclass against today's Munster final opponents Cork reconfigured the entire All-Ireland debate, was a reminder of how the threads of his two lives have become so inextricably knotted. And of how seeking to disentangle one from the other will remain an exercise in futility for as long as the Kildimo Pallaskenry leviathan remains a lead player on championship Broadway. The swashbuckling giant who led the shattering undressing of the Rebels, whose blistering impact on the long days has exhausted the pundits' store of superlatives, co-habits with the author of an infinitely more sinister off-field backstory. A five time All-Ireland winner; a young man who avoided jail after receiving a two-year suspended sentence on two counts of violent disorder inside and outside a nightclub in Limerick in 2019. He was later ordered to do 180 hours community service. Ironically, the more successful Hayes is at invading the vital moments in Limerick's mission to reclaim their status as the alpha males on the hurling landscape, the higher the volume is turned up on the chorus of outrage. When he is awarded a Man of the Match or, as he was last season, an Allstar (the awards entirely justified by on-field displays, the lone criteria the judging panels are empowered to assess), the condemnation screeches to a deafening crescendo. There are two constituencies feeding the frenzy. The first and the loudest are the social media attack dogs who instantly scramble for the high moral ground every time a controversy arises, their arguments shrill and one-dimensional and lacking nuance or perspective. But there are others, often compassionate, empathetic individuals, who are nonetheless alarmed that an individual found guilty of violent disorder, who has never expressed remorse and who received just 180 hours community service even after breaching the terms of his original sentence, retains a starring role in one of Ireland's most high-profile cultural celebrations. Their reasoning is more subtle, more heartfelt and not so easily dismissed. Some commentators in a counter-argument believe it irrational to hold athletes up as moral exemplars, that once the courts have spoken, life must go on. Even if it is an entirely logical assertion, it ignores the extreme emotions involved. That Hayes is able to shut out all the white noise each time he plays, that he shows no sign of surrendering his place at the centre of the hurling world even while finding himself surrounded by such ceaseless tumult, is, of itself, quite remarkable. At 6'5', his physique as muscular and streamlined and carrying the same sense of majesty as the thoroughbreds who will contest today's Epsom Derby, he is the Platonic ideal of an athlete so often imagined by ancient Greek sculptors. He has maybe the greatest arsenal of gifts - the pulverising power and torque of an Airbus A330, an Apache helicopter's lift and nimble manoeuvrability, a B-52 bomber's deadly payload of obliterating missiles — of anybody who has played the game. Cork, propelled into that recent round-robin tie on a tide of anticipation, departed less than two hours later nursing the kind of traumas that must have invaded their night time imaginings ever since. With Hayes rampant, Limerick were again a force of invincible self-belief, a reborn team delivering perhaps the magnum opus of John Kiely's star-spangled reign. In full flight and fizzing like a well-fletched arrow across a rectangle of grass, their number six offered a jolting reminder of why he rates among sport's most arresting and magnificent vistas. Watching again the footage of his wonder goal against Tipp in the 2021 Munster final, different elements of his jinking, jaw-dropping solo gallop — a run at once thunderous and balletic — evoke Lamine Yamal, Rudolph Nureyev, Roger Federer, the Road Runner confounding Wile E Coyote, a Lamborghini Aventador and an 18-wheel juggernaut. Tipp's defence appear as helpless as traffic cops trying to stop a runaway buffalo from breaking a red light. The fever of excitement surrounding Hayes that afternoon, his capacity to deliver such irresistible moments, was a key component in Limerick's four-in-a-row champions announcing their separation from the rest of the field. His success in combining demonic intensity with flourishes of artistic beauty in the most recent meeting with Cork — the player exhibiting what one Joe DiMaggio biographer describes as a 'glint of godhood' — strengthens the arguments of those who are happy to declare the 26-year-old the greatest hurler in the country. He is unquestionably the most divisive. If Hayes has one or two rivals for the title of Ireland's most influential hurler — led by his Limerick teammate, the lyrical master conductor Cian Lynch — he is unrivalled as the most contentious. Ahead of tonight's rematch, there will be discussion of a sporting life bejewelled by achievement, a freakish talent who combines an engraver's touch with the kind of physical dimensions that might eclipse the sun. As he swatted the Rebels aside 20 days ago, a rampaging Hayes had Dónal Óg Cusack flicking through the history books in search of a meaningful reference point. 'This Limerick we ever seen a better team than them? What a machine they looked, so well engineered, resilient, strong, every part is working and up for the fight everywhere.' Anthony Daly was just as effusive: 'Hayes is like a gazelle. It's not just his breaking out, it's the tackling, it's the handling at the last second, it's the whole package he gives you there at six.' 'Hayes is the leader of this Limerick team,' was the unequivocal verdict of Ger Loughnane's one-time sideline Sancho Panza, Tony Considine. Many, horrified by the court case that put Hayes on the front pages, look at his story from a different angle, declining to see beyond the self-inflicted wounds of his past. His suspended sentence on two charges of violent disorder inside and outside the Icon nightclub in 2019 — charges he denied at the 2023 trial — sits like an ugly, distinguishing visible-to-the-world birthmark. The evidence heard in court was authentically shocking. Many took issue with John Kiely's courthouse character reference, particularly the suggestion that Hayes 'accepts his part in that very disappointing night' and was 'very sorry'. How could that be, how could he have accepted his part and be sorry, went the counter argument, when he had pleaded not guilty? The feelings of his harshest critics are perhaps evoked in a memorable line from the political writer and former Clinton adviser, Sidney Blumenthal, in discussing Donald Trump's serial refusal to embrace the negative consequences of his actions. 'Trump's psychological equilibrium requires the constant rejection of his responsibility for the abrasive reality he churns up,' wrote Blumenthal. Whether or not Hayes is entangled by his conscience or is armoured against self-examination only he can truly say. What is certain is that he will race onto a Shannonside meadow this evening and the arena will rise to a fever pitch. Some to acclaim a phenomenal player, one they believe has advanced into the territory of competitive excellence accessible only to the all time greats. Others to toss their disgust like a Molotov cocktail onto the wildfire triggered every time Kyle Hayes steps onto one of summer's great stages.
