One of the most influential Catholic Church figures in Ireland has criticised those philanthropists whose donations, "however helpful to particular causes", are "too often overshadowed by the scandal of tax exile".
Fr Enda McDonagh, former professor of moral theology at St Patrick's College, Maynooth, said that refusal to pay due tax in the country they still call home and which still in so many ways sustains them is a clear indication of where their priorities lie, "however many named gifts they offer to prestigious charities and institutions".
He added: "In a fair society justice comes before charity and is the necessary precondition of authentic charity".
Fr McDonagh said in the 'bad old days' of the 30s, 40s and 50s emigrant remittances from those forced to leave Ireland in search of work kept many a poor family going. In the 'good new days' Irish tax exiles can end up subsidising the wealthy emigrants, a stinging summary of the dark side of our economic success.
Fr McDonagh made the remarks in an open letter to the Catholic Primate Archbishop Seán Brady, published in the current edition of Furrow magazine. The letter is in response to Archbishop's Brady's homily at Knock on August 22nd last, when he reflected on the growing spiritual emptiness of Celtic Tiger Ireland.
Commenting first on the positive achievements of this newer Ireland, Fr McDonagh said that with so much poverty, unemployment and emigration, and such inadequate public services, "economic development became a moral as well as a political priority in the Republic. Its advent, particularly through the second half of the 90s, had to be greeted and treated as a good, if not an unmixed one."
It is when reflecting on "the darker side" of this new Ireland that he made his remarks on our philanthropic tax exiles. More generally, he said, "the social injustices still prevalent in Ireland continue to receive that conscience-soothing placebo, attention without action".
The same was largely true of the self-destructive personal lifestyles of so many younger and some older people, rich and poor.
"Drug addiction and binge drinking, fatal car accidents and suicide elicit much public condemnation without any great practical impact. Both wealth and poverty and the growing gap between them play their roles in these sad developments," he said.