Businessman Ben Dunne dies aged 74

Irish businessman Ben Dunne has died aged 74. He is understood to have died in Dubai. A Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said that the department was aware of the death of an Irish national in Dubai.

Born on March 11th, 1949, in Co Cork, Dunne was a former director of Dunnes Stores, which was founded by his father, Ben snr. He played a leading role in the growth of the supermarket empire and became one of Ireland’s best-known business figures. Payments made by Dunne to two senior politicians, former taoiseach Charles Haughey and former Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry, led to his departure from Dunnes Stores. He later moved into the fitness industry, building a chain of well-known gyms.

“I’m going to miss him in a way I can’t even describe in words,” his son Robert said in a tribute quoted on the Extra.ie website. “My dad is dead. He had a massive heart attack and just didn’t make it. Simple as that. Overall, in the final analysis, he was a good and decent man.”

In 1981, on his way to visit a company store in Newry, Dunne was kidnapped by the IRA, and reports at the time suggested IR£1.5 million was paid in a ransom and that it was done at the request of Charles Haughey to his friend and fellow businessman Patrick Gallagher.

“The amount, I think, I know, in my opinion, is wrong and Charlie Haughey and Patrick Gallagher had nothing to do with the ransom being paid whatsoever, in my opinion, and I think I would have an idea if they did had,” Dunne said in an RTÉ interview with Miriam O’Callaghan in 2014.

Ben Dunne with his wife, Mary, and Fr Dermod McCarthy at Dunne's home in Castleknock, Co Dublin, in October 1981 following his release in south Armagh by the IRA, which had kidnapped him. Photograph: Dermot O'Shea

Speaking about the kidnapping, he said: “I remember when they let me go but I didn’t know whether I was free or not.

“I was left in a graveyard in Cullyhanna [Co Armagh] and the first thing I did was I got into a grave.”

In 1983, following the death of his father, Dunne took over the running of the family supermarket empire and a period of significant growth followed.

In 1992, Dunne was arrested for cocaine possession and soliciting while on a golf holiday in Florida, which was eventually to lead to his departure from the company, with his sister, Margaret Heffernan, taking over.

“It takes a long time to destroy yourself and the unfortunate thing – the road back – it takes just as long to get back,” Dunne told Eamon Dunphy in an interview in 2003.

“I was a sick man using cocaine. It was having a grave effect on me ... What I should have done, and saved everybody a lot of pain, was dealt with my personal problems.”

A year after the Florida arrest, Dunne was ousted from the Dunnes retail empire. Dunne threatened to sue his family, eventually settling for a pay-off of IR£100 million. However, as part of the legal manoeuvres, Dunne claimed in legal documents that he had given company money to former taoiseach Charles Haughey.

A report from PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants, commissioned by his sister Margaret Heffernan, who took over the running of Dunnes Stores, outlined in detail how Dunne had also given company money to then Fine Gael minister Michael Lowry, largely to pay for an extension to his home. Dunnes had a business relationship with Lowry, who provided them with refrigeration services.

Dunne had paid the money to the two politicians without the knowledge of the other family members.

Ben Dunne at the Moriarty tribunal in Dublin Castle in 2005. Photograph: Matt Kavanagh

Following the revelations, the McCracken tribunal was established by the government in 1997 to examine payments to politicians from Dunnes. It found that Dunne had knowingly assisted Lowry in evading his tax obligations and also criticised the payments to Haughey as being completely unacceptable. A second tribunal, the Moriarty tribunal, was subsequently established due to public concern about the findings of the McCracken report.

In the same interview with O’Callaghan, Dunne said he had “no regrets about things that came out that were true and what came out about Haughey was true”.

He said: “I gave him money but why have a regret?”

In more recent years, Dunne founded and ran a chain of fitness centres throughout the country, called Ben Dunne Gyms.

It was reported earlier this year that Dunne’s gym group swung back into the black in 2022, recording an operating profit of €3 million, following a difficult period for the industry during Covid-19.

The business returned to profit following Dunne shutting down six of his 12 gyms after exiting rent deals for the various premises.

“Paying rent is a mug’s game,” Dunne said in an interview. “My own business has shrunk dramatically but there was a very good reason for that as we took a view on rents which were crazy,” he added.

Dunne is survived by his wife, Mary, and their four children.