Businessman Denis O’Brien received a special recognition award at the annual EY Entrepreneur of the Year (EoY) awards on Thursday evening.
The entrepreneur, whose interests span telecoms to golf resorts, said he was “flummoxed” by the award, thanking Frank O’Keefe, the managing partner at EY Ireland for the “honour”.
Mr O’Brien said EoY was “just the most special programme for business people in the country”, noting it has had an “absolutely profound” impact on Irish entrepreneurship.
In a video prior to the award, he received tributes from notable Irish people including Bono, Michael O’Leary and Rory McIlroy.
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Mr O’Brien will join previous recipients of the award including Former Taoiseach Enda Kenny, An Post chief executive David McRedmond, the chief executive of Special Olympics International Mary Davis and former president Mary Robinson.
The award has also been presented in recent years to frontline workers in the HSE and An Garda Síochána for their work during Covid.
Roger Wallace, head of the Irish EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards said the company was “honoured” to recognise Denis O’Brien for his “exceptional contribution to Irish entrepreneurship and his unwavering support for this programme and its finalists”.
Mr O’Brien founded Esat Telecom as well as Digicel in Jamaica. He was a major shareholder in Independent News & Media (INM) prior to its sale to Mediahuis.
His retains interests in engineering services company Actavo (formerly known as Siteserv), the Quinta do Lago golf resort in the Algarve in Portugal, the Camiral golf resort in northern Spain, and a collection of other real-estate interests.
