The Secret Millionaire - 26/09/'11 - RTE 1 @ 9:35

Lady Chatterton

Tonight's "Secret Millionaire" is John Fitzpatrick

Successful hotelier John Fitzpatrick swaps his lavish New York lifestyle for the streets of Dundalk and goes on search of people he might be able to help.

Undercover as a returned immigrant making a documentary about the recession, he visits some of Ireland's most disadvantaged estates to find charities in need.
John spends eight days far removed from creature comforts and comes face-to-face with the realities of social disadvantage and poverty in Ireland in a way that he never thought possible. His experiences have changed his life forever.

Motivated by the memory of his parents, he sets his mind to searching for charities working with children. He finds a number of excellent projects run by incredible people dedicated to keeping kids off the streets.

Again we meet those local heroes working tirelessly in their communities to help those in need in spite of rampant social problems now made worse by the economic crisis.

Millionaire John Fitzpatrick proves that helping others can make a big difference in people's lives. His own experience stands out as he puts his day-to-day life behind him and engages wholeheartedly with the charities.

JONJO THE MISER

What does everyone think of it so far?

Lady Chatterton

John seems like a very down to earth chap. I loved the way he was so complimentary about the students cooking, John would be more used to haute cuisine in his five star hotels.

Lady Chatterton

Cuidigh Linn seem to do excellent work.

leahyl

That young fella that was singing billionaire has a good head on his shoulders!!

Diddler1977

What is his cover? I missed the beginning.

Lady Chatterton

A bit of trivia for ye - John's late mother, Eithne was a former Miss Ireland.

Lady Chatterton

Diddler1977 wrote: »

What is his cover? I missed the beginning.

It is that he left Ireland during the last recession to go to the US, he has now returned to do a programme about the current recession.

leahyl

Diddler1977 wrote: »

What is his cover? I missed the beginning.

He's supposed to be an Irish guy that moved to the states during the last recession and has now lost his job and has returned to Ireland and is making a documentary on the current recession

leahyl

Diddler1977 wrote: »

What is his cover? I missed the beginning.

He's supposed to be an Irish guy that moved to the states during the last recession and has now lost his job and has returned to Ireland and is making a documentary on the current recession

Lady Chatterton

"If your job in America goes t1ts up, you can have a job here" - LOL

garbanzo

"If what you do in America ever goes tits up I'll give ya a job here".....priceless from yer man !

Lady Chatterton

That young fella is a lovely kid.

leahyl

Aaaaw he gave the little fella something!!

tommytee

2k, bit tight I thought,

Lady Chatterton

In the UK version, the millionaire returns to the charity a couple of months later to see what progress has been made, it's a shame that they haven't done the same in this version.

JohnnyTodd

Dundalk dosent look like a very nice place. Some of them estates looked very bad.

Lady Chatterton

The place looked deprived but the people seemed really nice.

annabellaxx

tommytee wrote: »

2k, bit tight I thought,

Yeah..I'd have given them more. Wee bit tight alright

Dunny

JohnnyTodd wrote: »

Dundalk dosent look like a very nice place. Some of them estates looked very bad.

Did you want him to visit a new build??

strongback

He said he was donating €40,000.

€15,000 for the old folks

€2,000 for the boxing club

€20,000 for the kids house

Singing lessons for 6 months.....€3000?????


I thought he could have given more. €20,000 for an extension that will cost at least €50,000 fell a bit short for me.


I didn't get the feel good factor at the end. I thought it was a bit cringe worthy if I'm honest.

strongback

JohnnyTodd wrote: »

Dundalk dosent look like a very nice place. Some of them estates looked very bad.

Dundalk's a bit of a kip alright. The people are fairly insular as well.

leahyl

I agree about him being a bit tight! He actually only gave 20k of his own money - the other 20k came from the fund he set up in honour of his parents.

Thought he could have been a bit more generous - did you see his house in the hamptons FFS! The man is minted!!

Dunny

strongback wrote: »

Dundalk's a bit of a kip alright. The people are fairly insular as well.

Thanks. x

borderlinemeath

I know he gave Cuidigh Linn €15k, but I'm annoyed he didn't go back to the disabled couple and try and do something for them. I was in tears watching them.
Hopefully now that it's been broadcast, Louth CoCo might get their fingers out and find an accessible home for these people because they are in a living hell where they are.

L1011

leahyl wrote: »

I agree about him being a bit tight! He actually only gave 20k of his own money - the other 20k came from the fund he set up in honour of his parents.

Thought he could have been a bit more generous - did you see his house in the hamptons FFS! The man is minted!!

I think the fund was set up with his own money also.

Does seem so far that the donations might just be to the producers minimum (if they've one set like the US series has), 40k and stated-to-be-40k.

GaelMonfils

ok, so just finished watching last nights show and it was shyte!

The mulit-millionare, john fitzshowya gave away 18,500 of his own money (37,000k given away minus the singing lessons which 50% of this was his own personal money) which is a sum almost insulting to the poor! That was some tight ass money spending on his behalf and not to mention the advertising he received for his hour long, 18k would not buy an hour of rte air time.
I know people say he put his own money into the charity originally but this is just some elaborate tax write-off.
And before anyone ask, yes, ive given more than 18k to charities and i aint no millionare!

leahyl

They should be allowed give as much as they want (if there is a limit on what they give I mean).

40,000 euro isn't an awful lot of money in today's world - especially when you split it between a few people. I mean I know it's better than nothing but with the money he has I was disappointed he didn't give more to be honest.

MrThrifty

leahyl wrote: »

They should be allowed give as much as they want (if there is a limit on what they give I mean).

40,000 euro isn't an awful lot of money in today's world - especially when you split it between a few people. I mean I know it's better than nothing but with the money he has I was disappointed he didn't give more to be honest.

Easy-on people... Isn't something better than nothing, plus the fact that air-time is given to some of the charities and problems in particular areas. I'd be interested to see what proportion of people in this country donate the same percentage of their disposable income/wealth (excluding own home and business assets) to charities etc. Granted people will come back and say it shouldn't be judged as a percentage thing coz rich people tend to be filthy rich, but in my view it should be.

Oftentimes people's wealth is tied up in assets and your man in question may only have say 800k in accessible savings. 40k of this is 5% and that's assuming by the way that he doesn't already donate to other charities back home. So let's take an Irish person with 50k savings in the bank (no jokes about negative equity in relation to property owned please), how many of these types of people would donate 5% or €2500 or more to charity?

Plus on the boxing club donation, the issue here was the club relied heavily on community involvement and support to keep going and that was a positive thing. He deliberately then did not donate something like 10k as this might have a negative effect - locals might no longer want to make donations etc. and might feel it was no longer their club. Remember also that the founder had his name printed on various pieces of equipment I think so there was a pride thing there with him too.

DebDynamite

borderlinemeath wrote: »

I know he gave Cuidigh Linn €15k, but I'm annoyed he didn't go back to the disabled couple and try and do something for them. I was in tears watching them.
Hopefully now that it's been broadcast, Louth CoCo might get their fingers out and find an accessible home for these people because they are in a living hell where they are.

It's a disgrace. I can't understand why they haven't been rehoused in a bungalow?

L1011

leahyl wrote: »

They should be allowed give as much as they want (if there is a limit on what they give I mean).

40,000 euro isn't an awful lot of money in today's world - especially when you split it between a few people. I mean I know it's better than nothing but with the money he has I was disappointed he didn't give more to be honest.

I doubt there's an upper limit. I meant that there is possibly a floor limit, which the US series has.

Seeing as they only found 3 people to go on it, I wasn't expecting any massive sums to be splashed.

ziedth

I dont think there is a upper limit in the UK one anyway. IIRC a woman who I can't remember gave the bones of £100k before. I think she gave like 70 to one charity and was still very generous after that.

I was disappointed this week as last weeks episode nearly had me in tears.

CyberJuice

2k to the boxing club and they have to set up and take down their ring and equipment every session,coulda given 10k or so to them,the boxing is helping alot of kids,i dont know why he thought the house was 10 times more important than the boxing club

madamab

I saw the show and I really enjoyed it - I was moved by it and I sent an email via Fitzpatrick Hotels to John to tell him what I had gotten from the programme. He replied to me from his personal email and thanked me - he also told me that he had hosted a reception in Dundalk on Monday night for all the people and organisations he had met during that week. He said it was great to see the kids faces when they saw themselves on tv. He also said that Dundalk is buzzing from the whole thing - which is really great and positive. Lastly he said that next on the list was to sort out and chase up getting Tim and Diane the disabled couple sorted into proper accommodation. He finished by saying there is an awful lot more work to be done. My guess is he will remain involved with this community. Remember this show was filmed and edited so give him a break - the people in Dundalk are happy so be happy for them.

CyberJuice

im wondering does RTE give any cash to the guy to hand out or where is the profits from this show going? every tv show makes money or people wouldnt make them.

is RTE making money off of this show and using it to pay ryan tubridys wages,with only 40 grand goin into the pot i think RTE could have given the man another 10 or 20 grand to dish out

Sergio

Didnt see that episode yet but i have it recorded on my sky planner just havent gotten around to watching it yet.Really liked the first episode though with the guy from mayo who owned the plastic company.

Andromeda_111

I saw it and really enjoyed the program. John came across as a lovely person. For someone who works like him the fact that he took part and gave up a week of his work life to do the program is a big deal. Every bit of money given away freely is a really kind thing to do, €37k is a lot by anyone's standards. I say fair play to him. Like another person said already, I bet he's going to stay involved in these charities and help out in the future. It certainly made me think again about the time (very little at the moment) that I give to charities. There's a lot of people close to home that could do with a bit of help.

shuffles88

In 2009 I had the pleasure of staying in the Fitzpatrick Manhattan and I can honestly say John is a lovely man. I had won my holiday on the radio and even though i'm sure he's a very busy man he made time to meet myself and the other people who won the competition and made us all feel very welcome. Not only that but came out for a meal (which I'm pretty sure he paid for)with us again the night after we arrived and made plenty of time to talk to everyone. I was glad to see him on this show as I genuinely believe that he will stay in touch with the people he made contact with. As for the criticism as to how much he gave out well I think people have to bear in mind that he does plenty of good work even when the camera's aren't following him check out this article it details a lot of good work he's done : http://www.irlfunds.org/news/people/fitzpatrick_08.asp

Straight Talker

JohnnyTodd wrote: »

Dundalk dosent look like a very nice place. Some of them estates looked very bad.

You're judging a place based on a few run down estates.That young fella has really changed my views about the travelling community i hope that he can stay on the right road.

Straight Talker

strongback wrote: »

Dundalk's a bit of a kip alright. The people are fairly insular as well.

I think Dundalk is allright.It's the biggest town in Ireland and i never met a jackass like yourself there.

Dan133269

Brilliant! this episode has just been put up on youtube, I'll watch it later.
Living abroad at the mo and RTE don't have it available on RTE player for viewers outside Ireland, such a shame.

Any chance someone could upload the rest of them to youtube?

JP Liz V1

I assume the one on now is new

leahyl

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

I assume the one on now is new

Yup - was delighted he gave money to Gary for the rapping project - fair play to him, seems to making a real difference in the kids lives :-)

JP Liz V1

leahyl wrote: »

Yup - was delighted he gave money to Gary for the rapping project - fair play to him, seems to making a real difference in the kids lives :-)

Is Gary, the GMC fella that does the Cork song for the hurling final?

leahyl

JP Liz V1 wrote: »

Is Gary, the GMC fella that does the Cork song for the hurling final?

That's him

nino1

If you watch RTE at all you cannot not know that you are part of the secret millionaire!
The fake surprise at the end is ridiculous!
I think I'd be pretty disappointed if I had figured out all along I was on the secret millionaire and all I got as a cheque for €5,000!!