“Larry Goodman is Ireland’s JR — and beef is Ireland’s oil.” – Elaine Byrne: Barrister and Author
He hasn’t courted publicity in decades. He rarely gives interviews and isn’t a man who seeks headlines. And yet, few people in Europe wield more power over what ends up on our plates than Larry Goodman. At the centre of Ireland’s vast meat processing industry stands this intensely private businessman – the single largest exporter of beef in Europe, with companies that generate €2.5 billion in annual turnover. In Ireland, one in every four animals processed passes through his facilities.
For decades, his influence has shaped farms, factories, and food markets across the continent. To many within the industry, his name is inseparable from beef itself. A man of power and wealth who sits at the helm of a multi-billion-euro empire built on one of the country’s most valuable resources.
Now 89-years-old, Goodman’s reach extends far beyond slaughterhouses and export contracts. He is not only the dominant force in meat processing, but also the biggest player in Ireland’s private healthcare sector, and the owner of a vast property portfolio. He has never been more powerful. Never more influential. And yet his story has never been fully told.
Larry Goodman now lives a life away from the public eye, barely mentioned in the media and rarely discussed. But there was a period when he was daily front-page news. During the 1980s, his spectacular rise really stood out in a country gripped by recession and emigration. His ascent, although meteoric, was mired in a number of high-profile controversies that revealed his close ties with politicians. There were allegations raised in the Dail of ‘irregularities’ at some of his plants and accusations of favouritism by the then Fianna Fáil government led by Charles Haughey.
If Larry Goodman’s rise was remarkable, stretching from the sixties to the late eighties, his crash was sudden, dramatic and revealing: a collapse that almost bankrupted not only his company but threatened the existence of the agriculture economy in Ireland.
Goodman International had been involved in a hugely risky and controversial export credit guarantee scheme with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq but, following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, Larry Goodman now faced financial oblivion. He owed €510 million owed to 33 banks.
Dáil Éireann was recalled for the first time in its history during the Summer of 1990 to draft emergency legislation that was used to protect his company from liquidation.
The following year, ITN’s ‘World in Action’ documentary, featuring the testimony of a whistle-blower, detailed widespread fraud at Goodman plants and abuses of EU intervention schemes costing European taxpayers millions. Following the airing of that programme, Des O’Malley – the leader of the Progressive Democrats and the junior partner in a coalition government – insisted on setting up a ‘Beef Tribunal’ as his price for remaining in power with Haughey’s Fianna Fáil.
The Tribunal findings – although damning of his industry and his company – revealed widespread tax evasion and fraud of EC schemes in certain Goodman plants. But neither Larry Goodman nor his executives were found to have knowledge of the malpractice going on in his factories. Larry Goodman emerged unscathed and set about rebuilding his empire. He had had enough of the spotlight and entered a new phase of his professional life.
Shunning all publicity, he focused on rebuilding his company and re-growing his empire away from the spotlight, back in his headquarters in his native Ardee.
Goodman: Too Big to Fail, a new two-part documentary series for RTÉ One and RTÉ Player, tells the story of one man’s rise, fall and rise again. In doing so, it tells the story of Ireland’s most successful and controversial business figure, Larry Goodman, who emerged through a series of unprecedented crises and controversies to become the overwhelmingly dominant powerful player in one of our most vital and important industries.
Episode One – Monday 2nd March 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player
The story of Larry Goodman’s explosive rise in the meat industry and the even more dramatic and spectacular crash that brought his empire to the very brink.
Episode Two: – Monday 9th March 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player
From sudden collapse to improbable comeback, Larry Goodman fights through financial ruin, political firestorms and public controversy to reclaim his empire and throne.
