A company called Major Ventures appears high up on the list of payments for asylum accommodation for the second quarter of 2024 with a total of €3,184,340 having found its way into their accounts from the taxpayer.
As we will see, Major Ventures is ultimately owned by a company in turn owned by businessman Kai Dai – who was previously involved in the cash-for-visas Chinese Investor scheme which left investors being owed millions. It begs the question: who has drawn down the €16 million paid by the taxpayer for asylum accommodation in Carnbeg Hotel?
It is the first appearance for Major Ventures on the Who’s Who of beneficiaries for asylum accommodation payments, but the owners of the company are the owners of the Carnbeg Hotel on the Armagh Road in Dundalk which has been providing accommodation for people claiming International Protection since 2022. In that period, Major Ventures have received close to €16 million.
In the annual return for Major Ventures submitted to the CRO on July 10, 2023, it is stated that: “The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Tainbo Fund, which is a sub-fund of Shamrock Irish Investment Funds Plc.”
(Erudite readers might perhaps note the possible reference to the epic Táin Bó saga of Gaelic literature which was also largely centred on the region close to modern Dundalk. Raids ancient and modern, perhaps.)
The owner of Tainbo is listed as the Huawen Foundation which has been in liquidation since March 30, 2023. Huawen is owned by one Kai Dai, who is also a director of Tainbo. Kai Dai has an address at Carrickmacross, County Monaghan and is currently also a director of Kylin Prime Capital Limited which was struck off in January this year.
On May 8 last year, the High Court ordered the winding up of the company involved in the running of the Nuremore Hotel in County Monaghan which owed Revenue over €680,000. The company which ultimately owned the Nuremore was Huawen Foundation – owned by Kai Dai.
The court was told that Huawen operated as a consultancy company that facilitated persons who wanted to avail of the now defunct Immigrant Investor Programme which ceased to be operated by the Department of Justice here following concerns expressed by the EU regarding “border security, money laundering, tax evasion and circumvention of EU law.”
(Vesada Private, another company that has benefitted hugely from the accommodation payments, was also involved in advertising itself as a conduit for Chinese investors under the scheme and even mentioned the Sea View Hotel in Bun Beag, Gaoth Dobhair, as one of its projects. One of the owners and directors of Vesada Private, Des Connolly, still advertises this on his Linkedin profile but the former site links to this part of the company’s business are now defunct, ceased to be.)
A High Court case regarding the activities of the Huawen Foundation heard that over €66 million had been transferred out of bank accounts controlled by Kai Dai into related entities, including “himself personally”. Yet the liquidator had only found €39 in company accounts.
Kai Dai was reported to have raised tens of millions through the Immigrant Investor Programme – often described as the cash-for-visas programme – and at the end of 2018 Huawen was discovered to owe €48.8 million to persons who had subscribed through Huawen in order to avail of the scheme.
One of the assets bought through the Immigrant Investor Scheme was the Nuremore Hotel. The ownership of that hotel was described in the High Court as “opaque.”
We know that lots of what is happening in relation to the billions being paid through the Irish state to companies involved in providing asylum accommodation is similarly opaque, so the following questions need to be posed:
We have asked the first question of the DCEDIY, and will update this article in the unlikely event that the question is fully answered. The more we know of some of what is involved in the asylum accommodation caper, the more it demands a serious investigation by the Public Accounts Committee. Perhaps that is something that the new Dáil term might take under consideration?