One of the companies which Gript has previously mentioned as a star of the burgeoning asylum accommodation sector has shot its way into top of the charts for payments received through Minister Roderick O’Gorman’s fre- spending Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth (DCEDIY).
I am, in fact, referring to two individuals, Brian McDermott and Jamie Deasy as they are the owners of two separate companies; Pastures New Accommodation and Total Experience which between them trousered €7,323,225 in payments for the last quarter of 2023, which would place them in third position in the Charts were the two companies to be registered as the one entity.
The total take for both companies for the year was €9,236,125. As we reported yesterday, in 2023 alone, more than €2.1 BILLION was spent on asylum accommodation in this country.
Not wishing to blow their own trumpet perhaps, last November Fatima Gunning reported how at a meeting regarding a proposed cabin/marquee installation at Annamoe, County Wicklow, McDermott had modestly refused to state how much such a contract or their pioneering marquee camp at Stradbally was worth to Pastures New.
Not bad for two guys who pivoted their way from the entertainment events sector into helping others. Both are directors of Fuel Festivals which employs around 70 people and has had contracts with Paddy Power, AIB, PayPal and others to organise events. Fuel is wholly owned by Good Pasture Holdings, which in turn wholly owns Pastures New Accommodation and all are wholly owned by McDermott and Deasy.
The two are also directors of Aughrim River Operations which was set up in September 2023 and whose activities are described as “hotels and similar accommodation.” There are no shareholder details for that company but Aughrim River Hotels Limited which was established in May 2023 has the same directors.
Aughrim River Hotels is owned by Good Pasture, which has a 50% shareholding, Pomalo Holdings and Rotojay Holdings both of which have a 25% stake in the company. The company bought the old Lawless Hotel in Aughrim last October. The hotel which has been there since the 1700s remains closed with no indication as yet as to its future use.
Pomalo is wholly owned by Brian Brady who is a director of Aughrim River Hotels and Rotojay is owned by Jack Brady who is also a director of Aughrim.
One of the interesting things about the McDermott and Deasy-owned company, Fuel, is that it was part of the management of the accommodation centre in the former ESB premises at East Wall. A report published by the Dublin Inquirer last month referred to the company having suspended two of the staff it employed at the centre following reports of misconduct.
McDermott and Deasy’s company had, according to IPAS, been subcontracted by the accommodation providers who are Gateway Integration. We mentioned this company before, as two of its directors, Sinéad Fennelly and Carol Dwyer are also directors of Burvea which was given the contract for the day-to-day running of the former St. Mary’s nursing home in Ballsbridge.
Burvea got the contract from Goldstein Properties which had bought the site. Goldstein is a UK registered company whose directors are Eoghan Coughlan and Joe Christle who are also directors of Quanta Capital which is involved in the accommodation of refugees at Kippure estate which is managed by Seefin Events which is owned by Sineád Fennelly. Quanta had a share in Seefin until February 14 2023 as notified to the Companies Registration Office when full ownership transferred to Fennelly.
Mel Sutcliffe is the sole owner of Quanta Capital Investments and of several other connected companies. Quanta, which has been described as “backed by Oaktree, the California investment giant,” bought a proposed 82 acre data centre at Kilpedder in 2021. Quanta owns the Kippure estate and Lodge which is now being used to house asylum seekers. In October Gript reported that the site was costing €613,000 every month.
Yet, if you check the list of payments made through O’Gorman’s departments for accommodation of people claiming asylum here you will not find Quanta Capital or any of its variants listed as one of the beneficiaries.
Similar lacunae exist with regard to other companies which are involved in the ownership of sites that are now being used to house persons claiming asylum. It is also apparent that there are close links between the relatively small number of people who are doing very well from it all. The connection between the owners and managers of the East Wall site and McDermott and Deasy’s Fuel company is one illustration of this happy nexus.
Tracing those links and discovering who the ultimate owners of entities are, and where their investment funding is coming from is difficult. Something that is not assisted by the fact that some of the companies are registered in the Isle of Man and that information on the ownership of companies operating here is restricted legally.
Nonetheless, Gript will continue to probe into all of this as a matter of public interest.