Billionaire Getty oil dynasty buys Irish
Mary Dundon looks at members of the famous family who own Irish passports
MONEY won’t make you happy, but it sure as hell can help you choose where you want to be miserable.
And for a mere £7 million, Ireland is suddenly emerging as the preferred location for the heirs of one of the world richest families ö the Getty oil dynasty.
Seven heirs of billionaire oil tycoon, John Paul Getty, have been granted Irish passports under the controversial investment for citizenship scheme. And the dynasty that made its fortune on striking oil has made another lucky hit in securing these Irish passports at a bargain price.
While £7 million may not seem like much of a bargain to a lot of ordinary PAYE workers, Irish citizenship can be extremely advantageous to US heirs as it is a way of reducing their tax liabilities.
But what does the Emerald Isle get out of all of this?
Under the terms of the controversial scheme, any adult applicant for an Irish passport must make a £1 million investment in some job creation project and a substantial residence must be bought and maintained here for at least five years.
The seven Getty applicants were all adults when they were issued with these Irish passports and, although the scheme was terminated in April 20, 1998, any applications that were in the system were processed, according to a Justice Department spokesman.
And the Getty heirs are believed to have invested about £7 million here to buy Irish naturalisation.
John Paul Getty made his fortune by consolidating much of the US oil industry under his control and was feted as the world’s wealthiest man when he died in 1976, leaving a fortune of £4 billion.
While most of this huge fortune went to his Californian museum and art gallery, the seven heirs from his five marriages were the main beneficiaries of the £3 billion sale of Getty Oil in 1983.
But this massive legacy has not brought much good fortune to two of his heirs ö Aileen and Eugene Paul Getty III. These are among the latest members of the billionaire oil dynasty to receive Irish citizenship, according to the Government’s official journal, Iris Oifigiul. Tragedy has plagued this brother and sister who have just bought Gurtalougha House near Nenagh in County Tipperary.
The world famous brother and sister have had a life filled with anguish and terrible misfortune.
Eugene Paul Getty III, now 42, never fully recovered from the trauma of his kidnapping as a teenager when his ear was cut off after he was abducted by the Italian mafia.
The ear was then sent by post to his tight fisted multi millionaire grandfather who was reluctant to part with the $2.6 million ransom.
While Eugene Paul Getty III was later released, his kidnappers have never been caught. At 24, he took a cocktail of drugs in a bid to help his withdrawal from drink and went into a coma. He is now partially disabled.
Aileen Getty was diagnosed as HIV positive and she has fought full blown AIDS for the past nine years.
She has parted from her husband, Christopher Wilding, a son of Elizabeth Taylor. And the 39 year old mother of two shocked her family last year by publicly posing nude with a number of HIV positive models for a AIDS art show.
It is understood that the Gettys paid about a million for Gurtalougha House, in the village of Ballinderry, near Nenagh, County Tipperary this year. Aileen and Eugene Paul Getty III bought the house in conjunction with their mother, Gail Harris Getty,
Their father is the British based billionaire philanthropist, John Paul Getty II. The other Getty heirs who have purchased Irish passports are:
• Mark Harris Getty who is selling his apartment in Dalkey.
• Christopher Ronald Getty has an address in Ballsbridge, Dublin.
• Tara Gabriel Getty has received citizenship and has an address in Rathfarnham, Dublin. He lives most of the year in South Africa.
• Aridane Getty Williams who received a passport in June.
The Gettys will be some of the last world’s super rich to be able to buy a passport here. They are getting in as part of a backlog of applicants left unprocessed when Justice Minister John O’Donoghue decided to scrap the controversial scheme.
© The Examiner, 1999