Plastics entrepreneur John Concannon is the first Secret Millionaire on the new series starting tonight on RTÉ One.
John spent eight days living in the poorest regions of West Dubln and finding out about some of the local charities which help these impoverished regions.
"I've always been doing charity works and community work for years in my own parish," said John. "I'd be hoping that when this programme comes out it's going to maybe encourage people to do a bit more and hopefully I suppose it's the key ones we've supported are going to have impact, not just locally or not just in the west of Dublin but maybe in the country, people that want it, maybe they will get help."
John was no stranger to the challenge of going undercover, having done it many times at trade shows to find out about competing products, but he had a good cover story as well: "Brennan was my mother's maiden name, so I took that name, John Brennan. I was from Mayo, I was up looking at volunteers and carers in the Dublin region and seeing who was doing what and was there anything, ideas that we could bring back to the west and introduce in different towns."
The Secret Millionaire team also had a little bit of extra cover to explain the cameras: "The big thing was the week mine was done was the week of the election, prior to the election. So a lot of places if there was curiosity, young lads or guys like that we just said "look, we're just doing something for the election" and they left it at that and they went off."
While The Secret Millionaire does involve cover stories and a little bit of lying John was comfortable that it was all for good: "I think it was very good. At the back of my mind I know I was looking for what I felt was a genuine charity that I would support, so that was forefront."
You can see how John got on in his quest to find a genuine charity tonight at 9.35. In the meantime you can check out this video of John launching his career in plastics on The Late Late Show.
