A former Facebook executive has lifted the lid on extensive Irish efforts to court the social media giant, saying the company was given a “special phone” for contacting the government if it encountered any problems in Dublin.
The claim was made in a new book by Sarah Wynn-Williams, who was among senior Facebook figures who discussed tax and data regulation in private talks with then taoiseach Enda Kenny a decade ago.
She says Sheryl Sandberg, a top Facebook official, received the “special phone” on her first Irish business trip after the company decided in 2008 to locate its European headquarters in Dublin.
“The phone connected her to someone in the Irish government who could solve any problem or address any accommodation she needed.”
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Ms Wynn-Williams was once Facebook’s director of global public policy but she has since filed a whistleblower complaint about the company to US regulators.
Her memoir, Careless People, portrays Facebook leaders as “profoundly flawed, self-interested” and “callously indifferent” to the price some individuals paid for their enrichment as the company grew.
“This book is a mix of out-of-date and previously reported claims about the company and false accusations about our executives,” said Facebook, now known as Meta, in response to queries from The Irish Times.
The book describes how Mr Kenny in 2015 sought to enlist Facebook support to counter attacks on Irish data regulators in advance of new EU rules that shifted pan-European supervision of big tech companies to Dublin.
“‘Ireland’s been criticised,’ he says, which is true and asks if we can assist in ‘building up the credibility’ of his regulator by talking publicly about its audits of Facebook privacy, and the changes we’ve made because of it,” she writes of the talks with Mr Kenny at the Swiss ski resort Davos.
“In other words, we should tell the world the lapdog has been a pit pull. Of course, Sheryl agrees to this.”
Asked about such claims, Mr Kenny replied that he “wouldn’t have assessed Ireland in any way of being a lapdog for anyone”.
The writer was entitled to her opinion, he added. “We were very clear in that we had battles to fight and that we did fight. The evidence of the regulator stood up afterwards in the conditions that were applied to companies and the fines it imposed on them.”
The talks in Davos – the annual January gathering of business and political leaders – came after Dublin moved to phase out the contentious “double-Irish” tax regime that benefited Facebook.
“Sheryl says, ‘I appreciate that there was substantial pressure and scrutiny this year on global tax rules and arrangements,’ and thanks Kenny for his ‘careful’ and ‘considered’ handling of it.
“What she’s thanking him for is an additional five years of double Irish for Facebook and the other tech companies that Kenny had somehow wangled.”
She goes on to describe Mr Kenny telling Facebook about a new tax scheme known as the “knowledge development box”, prompting Sandberg to instruct Wynn-Williams to “stop taking notes” because such notes can be subpoenaed. “So this part of the meeting will be ‘off the books’.”
When Mr Kenny reportedly said details were still under negotiation, Ms Sandberg is quoted saying, “we’ll have our team help shape them”.
Asked about such claims, Mr Kenny said could not recall some details. Still, he said Ireland was in the vanguard of an overhaul of global tax rules by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Ms Sandberg’s public praise in Davos for Dublin’s work with foreign investors was extraordinarily beneficial, he added.
“She did say in front of a thousand people that from her experience of having worked in public and in private business the Irish really were the ones who were a role model for all in how to deal with potential investors. Given the height she was at you couldn’t buy that publicity.”
