Ireland's Top Earners

Following the success of Ireland's Rich List, Craig Doyle returns to cast an eye over the success stories behind the country's biggest earners. Made in association with the Sunday Times Rich List, this hour and a half countdown focuses on the 50 businessmen and women, who have made the greatest gains in the last financial year.

In his first interview for over five years, Co. Fermanagh man Sean Quinn breaks with his tradition of privacy to give viewers a glimpse of the exceptional commercial acumen that has propelled him to the top slot.

There is an appearance by Darragh MacAnthony of MRI Overseas Property, a member of the younger generation of Irish business moguls, interviewed at his company headquarters in Marbella. He talks about his joy at achieving a lifelong ambition by becoming the new owner of Peterborough United Football Club.

We hear from property magnate and entrepreneur Gerard O'Hare, and industrialist Martin Naughton. Also featured on the list are Denis O'Brien, the man who shook up Irish telecommunications in the 80s, brothers Kevin and Michael Lagan, who own one of Ireland's leading construction and property companies, Independent Newspapers proprietor and his Greek heiress wife Sir Tony and Lady O'Reilly, Michael Smurfit and family, Michael O'Leary of Ryanair, Harry Crosbie, who gave Ireland the Point Depot and pioneered the development around Dublin's docklands, and Liam Carroll, Dublin's most prolific apartment builder and one of the largest land owners in the country.

But the show is not all about profit and loss accounts and tax breaks. Craig opens the door into the lifestyle of the rich and successful, examining the latest trends in must-have items. Works of art, fast cars and helicopters are just some of the desirables on the shopping lists of Ireland's top earners.

Joining in to share their views, comments and pithy asides are some well-known business journalists, opinion writers and columnists - Nick Webb of the Irish Independent, Brian Carey of the Sunday Times, columnist Sarah Carey, Ciaran Hancock of the Irish Times, RTÉ broadcaster John Murray, Richard Buckley of Business Eye, James Stinson of the Irish News, Siobhan O'Connell and Nick Mulcahy of Business Plus and Richard Curran of Sunday Business Post.