“Creating value is not enough – you also need to capture some of the value you create.”
Sage advice from far-right tech billionaire, Peter Thiel, owner of IDF-linked Palantir. His one-time employee and Social Democrat TD, Eoin Hayes, was definitely listening. He captured a tidy €199,000 by selling his Palantir stocks, for which he is now coming under substantial criticism. But this is unfair – nowhere does Thiel say “don’t capture the value if it has been created off the backs of murdered Gazans.” The Trump-backer is also mute on the need to declare your dealings to the public. And the newly-elected TD for Dublin Bay South may well argue that he had, in fact, been honest. For in his pre-election video, doesn’t he state his relevant experiences plainly: “I know what it means to make sure your investments pay off!”
Yesterday, Eoin Hayes was caught out in a falsehood. He had claimed that he divested from his Palantir shares “before he entered politics.” This was presented unambiguously as being prior to his taking office as councillor to Dublin City Council in July 2024, after elections in June. He signed a Dublin City Council declaration of interests to this effect. However, it emerged that he had not divested prior to ‘entering politics’, but rather had waited until July. This was nine months into Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The share value to be captured had skyrocketed in that time.
Even Hayes’ two statements from yesterday where he supposedly came clean are slightly contradictory. Last night, he said that he had sought to divest much earlier than July, “but administrative barriers delayed the process”. What were these administrative barriers and when did they come into play? How much did they delay the process – days, weeks, or months? In his earlier statement, he acknowledged that Palantir had signed a new strategic partnership with the Israeli military in January and said: “I should have sold my shares then and deeply regret that I did not”. These “administrative barriers” were not cited as the reason for failing to unload his shares at that point.
Palantir
Funding from the CIA; developing surveillance tech; strong links to the military; data harvesting; and a close relationship with the Israeli state: Palantir has always been a grotesque corporation. Of course, Hayes may have come to realise the horrendous nature of working for such a company. But that is belied by interviews he has given where he has cast his time with them in a positive light. How to account for the fact that he could have divested his shares from 2021 onwards, yet didn’t – it’s worth noting that 2021 was the deadliest year for Palestinians since 2014.
Or indeed, on 29 November 2023, when Hayes tweeted that “the annexation of Gaza by the fascist Government of Israel has begun. Sanctions must be imposed immediately”, would this not have been an opportune time to sell? Especially since a few weeks earlier Palantir emailed its shareholders to say “We are one of the few companies in the world to stand up and announce our support for Israel, which remains steadfast.” And what about the €199,000 he made when he eventually cashed his shares in? Have those war profits not weighed heavily on his mind?
Ultimately, for the fate and effectiveness of Irish-Palestine solidarity, what matters even more than Hayes’ apparent lack of conscience is how his party operates. What did they know, when did they know it, and most critically, what will they do?
Questions for the Social Democrats
The mainstream media first covered this story on Thursday 5 December, when the Irish Daily Mail had it as a front page splash. In that Mail piece, the subheading read “Party source says they were not aware of his involvement in firm founded by Trump backer.” But this isn’t a credible line from the Social Democrats; Hayes’s past employment was widely known for months previously. It is even less plausible given Hayes’s interviews about it, and is rendered entirely unbelievable given that he declared it on his Dublin City Council declaration of interests when he was elected as a Social Democrat councillor.
So the Social Democrats knew of his past employment. But what of the shares? Hayes may have lied to the party, telling them the same as he had put in his declaration: that he had divested within the 12 months previous to July 2024. There are reasons to be sceptical of this, but let’s say that the Social Democrats were as deceived as the rest of us. That still wouldn’t explain the more probing issue of why they were comfortable with one of their reps profiting to the tune of such an amount from such an evil source. It should, at the very least, have prompted the question of when within those twelve months he had supposedly divested: before or after the onset of Israel’s genocide in Gaza? If after, how long after?
The Social Democrats don’t appear to have been bothered by any of these questions. But as mentioned, I think it’s entirely reasonable at this stage to ask if his party actually had more accurate information. Witness the party’s press conference a few hours before the news of Hayes’ lies had broken. By one journalist’s count, Hayes and other Social Democrat TDs – heavy hitters like Cian O’Callaghan and Gary Gannon – were asked 23 times to give the month he had divested his shares. The whole exchange is quite tetchy, as over the course of 20 minutes the Social Democrats as a whole refuse to give even a ballpark month (never mind a precise date). Instead, they chorused that he “divested before he entered politics”.
If it is the case that the party believed he had divested at an appropriate time, why the reluctance to give a simple date, which would have put the thing to bed? Why rally round and support Hayes in dodging the question if you didn’t in fact know that the straight answer was a terrible one? Who knows – maybe he had spellbound them all. In which case, good luck to the Social Democrats, I’m sure they’ll really put it up to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in any coalition government.
Hayes has been suspended by his party. According to their statement, it isn’t for the fundamental moral failing of profiting from a company tied at the hip to the Israeli murder machine. Rather, it’s for the crime of lying.
The Seat
Hayes, of course, was one of the surprises of the recent election. He narrowly beat out one of Sinn Féin’s more well known figures, Chris Andrews, to the final seat in Dublin Bay South. Since this story has come to light, there has been a clamour for Hayes to resign and to have a by-election in his stead.
Hayes should step down. The Social Democrats as a whole had Palestine solidarity as an important part of their election campaign. This was reasonable; they had been better on the issue than most parties in the Dáil and much of the Palestine solidarity movement in Ireland looked favourably upon them. Therefore, the fact Hayes had redeemed €199,000 in military spytech shares fundamentally contradicts the ethos the Social Democrats pitched in this election.
And examples like this are why socialists argue for a proper parliamentary recall function. During the Paris Commune, mandates from the electorate were so important that elected representatives were given the name mandatories and were subject to a recall vote if they failed to implement what was expected of them. Bring back the Paris Commune if for this alone!
The United States and Palestine
Sinn Féin are understandably among the loudest voices calling for Hayes’s resignation. While Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael polled 38% combined last month, and Sinn Féin only 12%, who knows what would happen in a by-election under these circumstances?
Sinn Féin are also emphasising Chris Andrews’ record of Palestine solidarity. He was previously a Fianna Fáil TD, of course, losing his seat in 2011 alongside a raft of his colleagues after bailing out the banks. It was during his time in this party that he participated in freedom flotillas intending to break the siege and bring aid to Gaza. This should be commended, absolutely.
But the fundamental question for Palestine solidarity in Ireland is: are you willing to defy the United States? The Occupied Territories Bill proves beyond all doubt the centrality of this. When the Irish Government flirted with the OTB for electoral purposes, it was the US ambassador who quickly quashed it. The OTB was mild legislation, drafted long before the genocide. As worthwhile as it would be to pass it, it wouldn’t come close to the sorts of sanctions necessary (e.g. expelling the ambassador, no troops or munitions through Shannon, etc). And even so, Washington couldn’t permit it.
As such, any real solidarity with Palestine necessitates us breaking the US cordon around Israel. On this question, Sinn Féin as a whole has failed. They have shown themselves, despite multiple, multiple opportunities, unwilling to thwart the White House.
Parties Holding the Line
And this brings us to a fundamental point about Irish politics: the myopic obsessions with the individual candidate at the expense of the party to which they belong. Andrews, no doubt, cares deeply about the plight of Palestine. But what is of far greater consequence is the political line of his party (from which he hasn’t deviated.)
This overemphasis on the representative has such a long history precisely because it gets ruling parties off the hook. When a minister is corrupt, it’s a personal failing, nothing to do with whichever of Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael they belong to.
There’s also the fixation in the pre-election period with candidate pledges rather than party pledges. (Or even better, party track records!) What a representative thinks is certainly important. But to get a sense of what they would do once elected, understanding the party’s stance – in word and in deed – is of far greater significance.
The point being driven at here is that while Chris Andrews as an individual would hopefully not profit in the manner Hayes has, and while he clearly cares deeply about what’s being done by Israel, at a political level what the Palestine movement should concern itself with is what his party’s answer is to the American question. That answer determines all else. And Sinn Féin’s has been to defer, not defy.
It is a similar party prism through which we should view the Hayes scandal. To repeat, he should resign. But the Palestine movement should have some pretty tough questions for the Social Democrats. Among them are not only those concerned with who knew what and when. More importantly: what will you do to force Hayes to step down?
It matters for the effectiveness of Palestine solidarity that parties match electoral promises to material action, that they give practical effect to the demands of the movement. It matters in terms of the precedents set.
There was a lot to be wary of from the Social Democrats before these latest revelations. They, along with Sinn Féin, unabashedly support the two-state ‘solution’, aptly described by Ilan Pappé as “the open prison model.” Why? Because that is what the United States supports, the inhumanity of it be damned. We should also note the Social Democrats’ refusal to rule out coalition with Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael, a stance which often reveals more about the essence of a party than any manifesto.
Caught as we are in Washington’s long net, Palestine solidarity in Ireland requires resolute political conviction. It demands us to face up to US imperialism, and not blink. And I think this Eoin Hayes affair says a lot about whether the Social Democrats were ever up to the task.
