Finbarr Filan Interview

"This is my first-ever print interview with a journalist," confides Finbarr Filan, looking suitably apprehensive as he sits across from Hot Press in the bar of a Dublin hotel.
Having just come from a Newstalk grilling, he’s looking a little shook. “I’m not used to this stuff yet. It was fairly tough,” he confesses. He takes a sip of Coke and chuckles nervously. “You’ll have to go easy on me, buck!”
This encounter might well be the Sligonian businessman’s first press interview, but he’s well used to hitting the headlines. A former industrial engineer, and now the owner/manager of a Centra outlet, the affable, 47-year-old father of three has just announced that he will be Renua Ireland’s candidate for Sligo- Leitrim in the next general election.
Previously he was making the news for less positive reasons. During the Celtic Tiger years, Filan set up a property development business with his youngest brother, Shane Filan (of Westlife fame). Shafin Developments went into receivership in 2012, leaving the Leitrim village of Dromahair with a ghost estate, and the shell-shocked brothers with unpayable debts in excess of €23million.
Shane went bankrupt and moved to the UK. Finbarr stayed to face the music...

OLAF TYARANSEN: What’s your earliest memory?
FINBARR FILAN: My earliest memory is falling into a fire when I was two, and landing on my hands. Dad was burning some stuff in the backyard. Back then you could burn rubbish, and I literally just parked into it. I can remember the pain of that.
You were the eldest of seven children. Was it a very Catholic upbringing?
We all went to mass every Sunday... in a line. Mum at one end and Dad at the other end, and we’d be nearly in age order. But we had ... not strong beliefs, but you know, you believe in God and back then you would’ve believed in the Church. You don’t believe as much in it now, but I do believe in some of the people in the Church. I believe in God, and I still go to mass.
What were you like at school?
Mediocre (laughs). Being the oldest, I had no role model ahead of me. They didn’t really know what needed to be done. The night before my Junior Cert, which was my first state exam, I was playing pool at my uncle’s place. That’s how I was studying.
Did you do the Leaving?
I repeated the Leaving Cert. The first time around O got two honours, second time around I got four. I wanted to do industrial engineering. I didn’t get into UCG, but managed to get into the RTC in Galway. And I’m so glad. It was a brilliant institution. I ended up doing a Cert, a diploma, and a degree. And I never got less than first class honours. It just clicked. And the funny thing was, the maths clicked as well. So it was like someone turned on a switch and it just worked. Galway was a great town to be a student in.
What age were you when you had your first drink?
27 (laughs). Both my parents are pioneers, and we just respected that. There was never drink in our house. My uncle used to come down at Christmas, and Mum would buy a six-pack of Guinness for him, and it’d last three Christmases because he’d take two pints each time. That was the way it was. I didn’t drink or smoke. My mother smoked, and that just put me off it forever because you’d go around putting out cigarettes that were left everywhere. I hated the smell of it and I still do. I played hurling and rugby for Sligo and I just didn’t see the point in it.
What changed your mind at 27?
I’d say I got married (laughs), but my wife would kill me for that. I was just more mature at that stage. I tried it, like, and you know you’d have a glass of wine that sort of stuff. I could go weeks without drinking. I drink a glass of wine now, or I’ll have a whiskey and coke or something like that, but it’s really social stuff.
I won’t bother asking about illegal drugs then...
Oh, you’re wasting your time! (laughs)
Were you sexually precocious growing up?
No, I wasn’t. Again, probably sheltered. I didn’t have my first girlfriend until I was 18. I was a big, heavy fella. My self-confidence wouldn’t have been great. Took a long time to get over that. And I really fear for kids now because, back then, it wasn’t as big an issue, but now it’s a huge issue. And that’s something that we really need to be very careful about. The whole social media, and how easy it is now to bully someone. My wife works in this area. She’s a counsellor, and it’s something she’s very passionate about: self-image for kids. You need to be talking to kids now, and particularly girls, when they’re nine or ten to give them a sense of value. Because once they get past that, they can lose it very quickly. I’m not just saying that because I’m going into politics now. As a society we need to start looking at this.
Was your family political?
No. I don’t even know how my parents voted. When you’re in business, you have to vote for everyone. Because you have everybody coming to the shop. I have votedFine Gael, Fianna Fáil,and Labour.I’ve always voted for whoever I think is the best person at the time to do a job for our town. So I’ve voted across the spectrum.
Were you still at home when Shane’s career with Westlife started to take off?
Shane was about 18 when the whole Westlife thing started. I was gone out of town at that stage. I was living in Galway. At the start, it was yeah they’re singing in the Hawkswell [Theatre]. He was in all the plays. You’d go home to see them because he was very good. All the lads were very good. And then it just kind of rocketed. Literally. For us, it was really exciting: “He’s recording in Sweden! He’s playing Wembley!” As a family we’d be very close like that.
He’s the youngest.
He’s the youngest and he was coming after a long line of very successful children. I’m an engineer, my next brother is a paediatrician, the next girl down is a secondary school teacher, then we have an accountant, then we have a physio, then we have one that did marketing, and then yer man came along who failed the Leaving Cert... or was pretty close to failing the Leaving Cert because he was just too passionate about music. My wife actually taught Shane when he was small and it was awful funny because Sean was in second class, and he was well able to walk to school at this stage. But I started walking him to school all of a sudden because it was a great excuse to meet her... ‘I’m bringing the little fella up!’ (laughs). But she always said that he was really, really talented. Really, really smart. But just wanted to, even back then, he just wanted to perform.
How was it for you watching your youngest brother become so successful?
We laugh at it. Until the day Westlife launched, right, Shane was my brother. Then I became his brother. And we were delighted. And people were, “Oh, you must be annoyed, right?” No. If you love someone and care about someone, you want to see them doing well regardless of what effect it has on you. At the start, it was don’t talk to the media, don’t do this. You’ll be hassled by fans. And we got a bit of help with that, how to deal with that. My parents wouldn’t change the number for the shop, so it was still in the telephone book – 43674 was the phone number. And the phone never stopped ringing. My oldest guy would’ve been two. We sent him out to answer the phone and everybody still slags him about it. The phone was at the top of the stairs, so he ran out to the phone one day and came back in and Mum said to him, “Who was it?” He says, “Fuckin’ fans!” And he was two! (laughs).
Have you ever flown in a private jet?
Once. It wasn’t a jet, it was a turboprop, and we went to Birmingham for a Westlife show. Shane was in a show in Ireland and then he had to record something else and he couldn’t travel with the lads. And it was absolutely great craic.
At what point did you decide to go into business with one another?
Probably about 2002 or 2003. I had done well in industry. I had been in Abbott and I’d been in Boston Scientific in Galway. I ran the stint department, so I was the supervisor in charge of the first cardiac stint built in Europe. I was offered a job in Belgium, by J&J to go and head up the stint department in Antwerp. And the Westlife thing was going really well. I mean, we were having great craic. When we’d be at a party, it’d be myself and Geraldine and Shane and Gillian and one other of my sisters and brothers. But the common denominator was myself and Geraldine were always there. Now part of that was because I was the big brother, Mum and Dad would’ve gone, “Oh, keep an eye on the buck.” That’s what he was always referred to. He’s like the golden child. But we had great fun and were very close then. I’m eleven years older than him. He was a kid when I was going to college. And I’d come home and all of a sudden this fella can read! “When did he learn to read?” And all these kind of things. And there was some disconnect when you’re that far apart. Like if he had been born couple years later, I probably never would’ve lived with him. So I was offered a job in Belgium and I was chatting it through with Shane, and he said, “There’ll be no craic if you go.” Now, the Belgium gig was good, but it wasn’t going to leave you in such a way that you’d be able to fly home all the time. So Shane said, “Sure, why don’t you stay? I have a few houses you could mind” – because he was hiring a guy to do that. Anyway, it went from there. We decided we’d build a couple of houses, split the money, and away we go. First of all, we looked at two houses. They didn’t appeal so we left it. That’s when we got going and we looked at a site in Dromahair.
This is the housing development that you ended up owing millions on...
That’s well documented. I do say to people, “Buy the book [Shane’s autobiography, My Side of Life and I’ll get him to sign it for you!” It’s all out there, and it’s not something I want to be rehashing all the time. We’ve done it, we’ve taken our punishment, we’ve done our penance. It’s time to move on.
Are you still in debt to the banks?
Oh yeah. I’m actually meeting one of them next week. I have worked with the banks since day one.
Shane eventually went bankrupt and moved to the UK. Why didn’t you do the same?
I had no money. They won’t bankrupt you unless there is something in it for them. And this is the terrible thing... the banks are selective and they picked on Shane because he is a public figure. In Sligo, we don’t make the top ten of people who owe money to the banks. This is the facts of it. While we owed a lot of money, the punishment that was meted out to Shane wasn’t warranted compared to everything else that was going on. We were working in Sligo, trying to do something good for Sligo. If we had gone on another couple of years, we would have created in the region of 400 jobs. That’s what we were looking at.
How would a housing development in Dromahair create 400 jobs?
We also had two nursing homes, and the nursing homes alone the staffing was nearly 200 for them together. We were going to have two shops of our own which probably would have had 70 or 80 employees, and then there were associated shops around the two units we were building.
Shane’s book opens with the pair of you divvying up the loose change in a basket in his house. That must have been a low point?
There’s lots of low points. You can’t pick a low point, because the day you didn’t get planning permission is a low point, the day you had to go to An Bord Pleanála is a low point, the day we had to count the money was a low point.The next day,or two days later, when I was in Enniskillen and I had the coins bagged up in 25s as opposed to 20s and put them out on the counter in the bank, and had to recount them, and re-bag them, was a low point. The day I had to leave Shane and Gillian to the airport... (There is a pause as Finbarr wells up and cries silently. He makes himself continue)...
That was a low point. The day I left them to the airport with the house emptied, was the lowest point. And even now I haven’t talked about that in two years and it has gotten to me. That for me was the lowest point because he was gone and I was on my own and it wasn’t that I... I didn’t begrudge him, it was just that this was it. It was over and I was putting him and his family on a plane and I didn’t know when I would see him again. And...(Finbarr gets upset again).
Give me a minute. Fuck this now!
Are you alright?
No (wipes eyes). I haven’t talked about it in a while, you see. I thought I had this dealt with.
Did you seek professional help?
I went to a guy every fortnight for two years because I could not deal with the pressure. The pressure is horrendous and it was awful important. But it would be just like [talking to] you. He’s a guy in his fifties or sixties, a lovely man, a lovely soft voice and he just let me talk. The lowest point, for me, was when I put him on that plane. We had to bring two cars. Dad drove Shane and Gillian and the kids up and I drove the luggage. I wheeled in the luggage and I said I have to go. I gave him a hug, I gave Gillian a hug and I said I have to go and I cried half the way home. It was terrible.
When was the last time you saw him?
Two days ago. He’s in Sligo, so I see him regularly now. I saw Gillian and the kids last night.
Why the decision to go into politics after going through all of that?
A couple of reasons. I was sitting at home in January flicking through the paper and I saw this Renua Ireland thing and I says, “What are these guys up to?” I would have been like most people fed up with the current political system. And I would have seen a lot of that over the last couple of years dealing with the councillors and how things are done. And I just ticked a box. I went on the website and I ticked a box. There were two boxes; interested in being a member? And interested in being a candidate? So I just said I would see what this is all about.
When did you first met Lucinda Creighton?
Then I saw Lucinda was doing her roadshow – basically, she would come to a town and meet people and get the feel of what they were looking for. I had started working with a group of people in the town, men and women, first of all under the auspices of a purple flag group. We got very passionate about the town and developing the town and being positive about the town. And Vincent Browne was coming to town on the same night, and I was thinking the town is going to get a hammering. We hadn’t discussed it but I said I am going to go to that because someone needs to stand up for the town.
What were you doing for a living at this point?
I was back in the shop in Castle Street. It was the family building, my parents were in it for 40 something years, my sister, who had a clothes shop, was in it for five or six years. That closed when the big shopping centre opened, and a guy rented it and putaCentrainthere.Hedidagreatjob,butitdidn’t work out. He walked, and we let him walk. But then when the crash happened, and everything went, I went back into it full time, so I’m about four years in it now.
So you’re now a Centra manager?
That’s it, yeah. It’s something totally different. When you were a kid you were behind the counter doing the till and all that kind of stuff. I was petrified trying to learn how to use a till because it’s all touch screens. Learning the names of 100 types of cigarettes when you didn’t smoke. The different between Silk Cut Ultra and Silk Cut Silver; it’s the same fucking thing! So that was a learning curve, but it was through that that I got involved in the business community. Anyway, so I decided I would go to Vincent Browne and this Lucinda one. I probably chickened out of Vincent Browne and I went to Lucinda. And to be honest I’m delighted I did because it was very positive. There were about 50 people in a big circle in a room asking questions and they asked about everything. They asked about water charges because it was a big thing.
This was just a few months ago?
It was March or April. They were asking: what are you doing for local farmers? What are you doing for the mart in Donegal? I asked what are you going to do for the town centre? What are you going to do for small SMEs like me? You got no waffly answers. They were all straight up and very clear.
Was it just her?
No, she was there, Eddie [Hobbs] was there, John Leahy was there, Liam McCabe was there and Sarah Tyrell. I thought they were very brave. They sat down and talked for about five minutes each and then just asked questions. It was all very positive. But that was it, went to the meeting, went home and watched Vincent Browne the next evening, and I spent the whole time roaring at the telly because it was just so left-wing. We came across like a crowd of hillbillies who weren’t going to pay for anything, and were going to burn down everything, and it was just such a negative portrayal of the town. So I said, “I have to do something about this, this can’t be let continue.”
When did you decide to stand in the next election?
About three weeks ago the call came out looking for candidates. It came out to all the same people; if you ticked the box you got a mail asking if you’re interested. Because of my stuff with the purple flag and with the Sligo bid and wanting to do things better for the town, and because sometimes you need to change agent to make things happen. Also, because the committee was so good I said, “Well, I’m going to throw my hat into the ring anyway.” That’s about three-and-a-half weeks ago, and here I am now!
Were they aware of your celebrity connection?
I have no political experience, never been involved in a political party. When I got the gig, John Leahy was there – the councillor from Tullamore – and Liam McCabe, the party Chairperson, and I let everybody go and said, “Lads, I need to chat to ye. I’ve signed up to this position and I have a bit of a history.” They kind of looked at me and I said, “I currently have a Centra store where we employ 22 people and we’re in business, but I also owe the bank a lot of money... and I’m Shane Filan’s brother.” They looked at me and said, “Well, did you do anything wrong?” I said “No.” “Are you bankrupt?” “No.” “Were you ever in jail?” “No!” “Well off you go.” So I declared it from the very start.
Have you been given any media training?
No, but one of my friends texted me: “Oh, you must have done a weekend course.” No, I haven’t. I’ve always been able to talk. I’m a good oral communicator. Written I’m hopeless, but orally I’m fine.
How did you vote in the same sex marriage referendum?
I voted ‘Yes’.
How do you feel about the legalisation of drugs?
I would be against it. Again, I have no experience but my wife works as a counsellor, and she deals with a lot of people who have mental issues because of overuse of drugs. We’re all grown-up people – you can do whatever you want – but like anything it’s everything in moderation. If you want to do it, that is fine. She sees the worst of the worst, and I’d be very concerned for that. I’d be very concerned that kids would accept it as the norm. I didn’t drink because my friends drank. What adults do is fine as long as it is hurting no one. But I would be concerned that if drugs were legalised that you’d get kids getting involved.
How about the legalisation of prostitution?
Again, I wouldn’t be on for that. I don’t want to be coming across as a total namby-pamby, but, again, you have to look to the seedier side, the darker side of it.
Surely legalisation will take the seedier side out of it?
It never will. That would be my fear. Cigarettes are legal, you still buy them on Moore Street in a black packet. I would look at it that way. You’re asking hard questions, buck (laughs). On my first day out!
What would be a fair minimum wage?
I look at it a different way,and this is a more political answer now. We have a small shop and some of our workers are on the minimum wage and some are not. For the minimum wage to be jacked up, that would really hurt us because it’s booming in Dublin, but if you were to take a sample of businesses at random in Sligo and check their books – they’re not making a lot of money. It needs to be handled differently. We are getting tax cuts at the minute but they are at the bare minimum. It would be better if we could reduce the tax take so that people who are on minimum wage would get more out of it.
James Charity resigned from Renua over their U-turn on water charges. What is your stance on water charges?
There’s no U-turn on water charges. I don’t know where James got this. That was one of the issues addressed in Sligo. The response from Renua then and now, and from me, was that we need to pay for water – it’s one way to encourage conservation,
and to pay for the upkeep of the service. Irish Water is not fit for purpose, it needs to be abolished, but overall we do need to pay for water. The reason I can remember that so clearly is that in another hotel on the same night there was 100 people screaming “We’re not fucking paying for water.” I was thinking, how will we defend that issue if so many people are against it? But as you can see, it’s dying out. Most of rural Ireland has been paying for water for years. The system in Dublin is ancient, cast iron pipes. You can’t do that with forty Irish Waters – which is what it was going to be before Irish Water – but the set-up has been a fucking nightmare. I don’t know where James got it from, but we’ve been saying it from day one.
What’s your stance on abortion?
I wouldn’t like to see abortion on demand. I just fear the consequences that would have on our morals and our social standards in the country. I do believe we need to have a serious discussion about fatal foetal abnormalities and rape, incest, if the life of the mother is a problem. We have three kids, we have three healthy kids, and we’ve been very, very lucky, but I know the decision I would have been making, and that I would have wanted my doctors to make, if something was happening and my wife was in trouble. And I think most people would feel the same way.
Are you following the banking inquiry?
Yes and no. I think it’s a fucking ferocious waste of money. It’s political point scoring. Most people don’t give two fucking hoots about it, and it’s not going to fix the pain we had. It’s a political game to tick a box [to say] that we’ve had a banking inquiry.They’ve no powers to rap anyone on the knuckles,even.They’re totally limited in what they can do, in case it strays into one of the legal cases that are going on at the minute, so I think it’s a waste of time.
Should Ireland take in any of the North African refugees currently crossing the Med in boats?
First of all, I think it’s horrendous that people feel they have to get a fucking rubber dinghy and go across the Mediterranean. I would hate to be in that situation. It’s a real humanitarian tragedy. We need to take some and we need to take what is a fair proportion to ourselves. We need to look at the difference between refugees from a chaos or crisis – you know, people who, if they stay there, they’re dead – and people that are coming cause they want to make some money. Europe, and Ireland,
is just recovering; we’re very, very weak, we’re still high on unemployment, we don’t want to be dumping more people in on top of it. But if someone is being persecuted and is going to be shot, that’s a different situation. So we do need to be taking a fair proportion of them, but when they get here the way we treat them is terrible, we literally lock them up. There’s a direct provision centre in Sligo about 400 yards from the shop, and it’s like a prison. These people are in there for five or six years, and that’s not right. They don’t have the dignity of work, they don’t have the dignity of doing anything themselves.
So you’re against direct provision?
It needs to be sorted, straightened out. If someone comes here, after a year or 18 months, you’re out the door, either you’re in or you’re out. But it needs to be fair and transparent, and it needs to be speeded up, so that they’re just not sitting there.
Will you have to obey the Renua party whip if you’re elected?
Renua won’t have a party whip unless it’s on matters of financial or the budgetary process. Because whatever you decide, you sort it out beforehand,
get it thrashed out and then you toe the line. It’s like forming any budget. When I was in industry, you’d be looking for more for the production department and the quality department are looking for more, something would be drawn up and, “That’s it, lads, get the fuck on with it now, see ya next year!” So in that case you’d have to. After that there won’t be a whip.
Do you think you have a chance of getting elected?
I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t!
What would you say to people who simply see you as a failed property developer?
People think it all fucked up and you’re a failed businessman. I don’t see it as a failure; I see it as a learningexperience.Iamawinner.Idon’tfuckinggo into it for the craic. I wouldn’t waste my time and that of the ten people in Sligo that have been working on this with me.
Do you have a motto in life?
Myself and Shane both have a motto: everything happens for a reason. When you accept that you can get on with life. You can get on with the highs and the lows, and that was one of the things that kept us going then. So just keep going. As long as you are true to yourself, and you can keep that in your head, you’ll be fine.