A response to a PQ from Independent Offaly TD Carol Nolan from Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth Norma Foley claims that full and proper scrutiny is applied to all contracts to provide international protection accommodation.
That’s a claim that numerous examples highlighted by Gript and others would throw into question.
Deputy Nolan had specifically asked how “it is possible for a company or an organisation with no prior experience in providing accommodation services to apply for and receive a departmental contract for the provision of international protection accommodation; and if she will make a statement on the matter.”
She had also requested that she and the Oireachtas and the general public be supplied with a figure for “the total value of these contracts” awarded to such companies.
In her response, Minister Foley stated that “Details of individual contracts or contractual arrangements between the Department and external providers are considered commercially sensitive. In order to preserve the Department’s negotiating position, the costs paid to providers, or the details of contracts are not published, as making this data available to other accommodation providers would not serve the public interest in terms of value for money.”
In relation to the manner in which accommodation contracts are awarded to companies with no proven experience, the Minister actually avoided the specific query. She said that contractors must be “tax compliant” and “subject to compliance with statutory requirements and minimum standards.”
She goes on to refer to a whole host of other criteria including “previous use of the property, accommodation suitability, rates, room sizes, capacity and amenities, information on the building’s safety and fitness for occupancy, and various other criteria such as Wi-Fi, security provision and staffing.”
There is no mention at all of “previous experience” even though almost every Departmental notice both to local authorities and to the general public on the awarding of any such contracts almost invariably refers to “experience” and prior relationship with the Department as one of the determining factors in the contract having been awarded to the company in question.
Let me jog your memories, and perhaps those of Department officials, by recalling some of these.
Just a few days ago I wrote about a potentially large IPAS centre in Tallaght. Not only is there no record of Cuspview or the site owner Vasselot having any experience in the field of minding refugees but the company was only established last September. None of the principals appear to me to have any obvious connection to an accommodation contractor.
Or consider the new contractors for the controversial Dundrum House Hotel in Tipperary. Not only has nobody, including those of us here and experienced business journalists, not one clue as to who owns Utmasta but there is no record of their having anything to do with asylum accommodation, or any other thing, in this country. Are they also claimed to be “experienced” in this field of endeavour?
Although interestingly, the Department statement on Utmasta is almost identical to the response to Carol Nolan and does not mention experience.
We have also written about Dave Mooney and Igo Café which transformed itself into one of the major beneficiaries of your largesse on behalf of the thousands of asylum seekers – 80% of whom the State and the mainstream media are at last reporting are rejected – who are looked after by Dave. They certainly have plenty of experience in the business now, but what were their qualifications when a little café in Sallynoggin decided to abandon pastries for this game?
Another plan for a huge centre at Lissywoolen is also currently halted in a court action following the refusal of Westmeath County Council to grant an exemption. The contractor for Lissywoolen is a company called Trailhead Unlimited.
In announcing the awarding of the contract last October, the Department referred to Trailhead’s “expertise in providing facilities management services,” and that they had “worked with the Department in the past to provide accommodation for people who have fled the war in Ukraine.”
Really? Because when I went to look at the company records for Trailhead Unlimited I discovered that it had only been officially registered with the Companies Registration Office (CRO) on September 25, 2024, weeks before the contract was awarded. It had actually been registered as Vanillawood Unlimited in August, but changed its name at the end of September.
The registered shareholders were two companies whose function appears to be to solely register rather than manage companies and it is unclear at this stage who the beneficial owners of Trailhead Unlimited are. The original directors of Vanillawood/Trailhead were Shabbir Garana and Karen Corcoran.
Garana – who has more than 3,300 previous directorships – and Corcoran who has more than 4,000 previous such positions – resigned just before they changed the company name. The current directors of Trailhead are a Jacintha McCarthy and an Alan Flanagan.
McCarthy is also listed as the secretary of Trailhead and both have the same address at Fisherman’s Wharf, Ringsend, Dublin. Neither are listed as having any other current or previous directorships or shareholdings and I have no idea as yet who they are. I shall, in due course, know more about all of these people.
If these sometimes mysterious entities do actually have experience then it does not say so on the label. Is the State claiming that they do, but that the persons with that experience in getting your money for asylum accommodation can remain mysterious?
Why so? Is that a normal or healthy system under which to award massively lucrative state contracts? People get all worked up about bike sheds and whatnot but at least you can tell straight away who the contractors are.
At the risk of boring the heads off you all again, all of this needs to be subject to a full public inquiry. In the meantime, you shall have to be content with the sleuthings of Gript and other researchers.