One of the great rags to riches tales to spring from the asylum accommodation sector must surely be that of the IGO café in Sallynoggin – one which, as election candidate for Dublin Bay South Nick Delehanty stated last October, was no longer even open for business. Nor is another of the same name that was in Finglas village.
IGO café still has a Twitter account which modestly advertises its role in the Universe as “Cafe, caterer and cake and cupcake maker.” Well, by Daid, a lad might start to rummage through the old Odlum’s recipe books because selling cupcakes appears to have earned the owners of said café a lot of money.
That Twitter/X account appears not to have posted anything since October 2020 when it reshared the announcement by local Fianna Fáil TD Cormac Devlin that he was battling for beleaguered SMEs as part of the new programme for government.
IGO also put up a smiley festooned repost of an account by Leah Doherty, daughter of former Fianna Fáil minister, of some epic bashing of the For Roysh in May 2020.
The IGO Café on the Sallynoggin Road was registered as a business in October 2017 as jointly owned on a moderate shareholding of €50 each by Romanian national Cristina Andries with an address in Dún Laoghaire and Ann Murphy of Borriskane, County Tipperary. Both are still owners and have overseen a remarkable upturn in fortunes since the IGO Café “Became involved with IGO Management Services” on June 1, 2022.
The little café began modestly and reported tangible assets of just €9,686 at the end of 2020. It described itself as involved in “restaurant and mobile food services” and employed just three people including one of the directors.
Andries and Murphy also own IGO Emergency Management Services which was established in September 2023 but which as Nick Delehanty pointed out has been in receipt of payments for accommodation – mostly for International Protection applicants but also Ukrainians – since 2022. August 25, 2022 as far as I can make out.
Since then it has received, to the end of September last, more than €46 million. That’s a lot of cupcakes now. So, what do they do exactly?
Well, as far as can be made out what IGO Emergency Management do is manage centres rather than own them. For example, we reported recently on the proposal to use Dolcain House in Clondalkin as an IPAS Centre.
The company seeking the contract is Randalswood Holdings yet in an application to South Dublin Council in November 2022 the owner of Dolcain House is given as one David Mooney. The owner company is given as IGO Emergency Management Services. Yet, Mooney is not registered as a director nor an owner of IGO Emergency Management Services.
Mooney’s name also appears as the owner of a property at 6e Eblana Avenue in Dún Laoghaire for which an application was made also on behalf of IGO Emergency Management Services on June 9, 2023 for the “vacant building to be occupied as emergency residential accommodation.”
So, it would seem that IGO Emergency Management provide people to manage the centres on behalf of the actual owners or contractors for the buildings in which the centres are located. IGO also has contracts for other IPAS centres, including Thornton Hall, where the property in question is owned by the state.
They are also reportedly the management company at Kippure, Kilbride, Crooksling, Newtownmountkennedy, and Heatherside in Cork. Several of those centres are also on state owned land. IGO obviously has established a good record with regard to its having transitioned from making little pastry cakes to overseeing such an important state service.
It has certainly not done them any harm financially. By the end of 2023, the little café employing 3 people and with tangible assets of less than ten grand, was now reporting assets of €3,381,908. By that date it was employing 31 people and directors remuneration came to over €1 million. And everyone is too busy helping to have time to return to the humble pursuit of baking cakes and brewing cups of tay.
They also owe some thanks to the David or Dave Mooney who put in the planning applications.