Simon Coveney’s consultancy firm made annual profit of almost €150,000

An advisory consultancy established by former tánaiste Simon Coveney has posted annual profits of more than €147,000 in 2025, its latest accounts show. Cobh-based Waterfront Advisory Limited provides strategic advice on areas including public policy, marine and maritime affairs, infrastructure, government relations, and defence and security policy. The other director of the company is Laura McGonigle, who was a special adviser to Coveney in three government departments: Foreign Affairs, Defence, and Enterprise, Trade and Employment. She was previously a Cork City councillor and also an adviser to Deirdre Clune between 2014 and 2019 when Clune was an MEP for the South constituency. READ MOREWaterfront was established in 2025 after Coveney retired from politics after serving as a TD and MEP between 1998 and 2024. During a long ministerial career, he served in the departments of Agriculture, Defence, Housing, Foreign Affairs and Enterprise. Coveney’s company disclosed in abridged financial statements that it made a profit of €147,693 in the financial year to the end of February 2026. At February 28th the company had fixed assets of €39,280 and net current assets of €108,513. Since leaving politics, Coveney has been involved with several companies. He is a consultant to EY Ireland’s Geopolitical Strategy Unit and is also a director of the Reliance Bearing and Gear Company, a long-established company with headquarters in Cork that supplies components for industrial engineering. In its most recent return to the Lobbying Register, Waterfront Advisory stated that, on August 26th last, Coveney lobbied Tánaiste and Minister for Finance Simon Harris on behalf of Bremore Ireland Port Company.The meeting with Harris, a former Fine Gael ministerial colleague of Coveney, was described in the lobbying return as a “progress briefing on the development of the new port at Bremore”.In a separate entry for the same day, Ronan Group, the company headed by developer Johnny Ronan, stated that principals of the company, together with Coveney, met Simon Harris and civil servant David Owners “concerning the development of Bremore Port and related ports and infrastructure policy”. It stated that the intended results were “to gain support, discuss and progress the development of Bremore Port, including relevant Government policy, planning and infrastructure considerations”. Records on the register show Ronan lobbied Coveney in 2016 when he was minister for housing. Ronan wrote a letter to the then minister seeing changes in planning laws to allow higher apartments at Spencer Dock, Dublin, and consider new financing models for housing. [ Simon Coveney: Former minister once lobbied by developer Johnny Ronan, now lobbies for himOpens in new window ]There were no meetings or further contacts. It was one of 3,000 separate lobbying actions received by Coveney when he was a minister. Coveney’s profile on the Waterfront Advisory website has stated that his “breadth of experience gives him a rare, joined-up understanding of how economic policy, national security, infrastructure, housing and marine affairs intersect in practice”.“As Minister for Foreign Affairs during one of the most challenging periods in recent European history, he was a central figure in Ireland’s response to Brexit, helping to safeguard the Good Friday Agreement and protect peace and stability on the island of Ireland,” the website says.The Irish Times contacted Coveney on Wednesday but he made no public comment.