Whelan workers hit out at NAMA

WORKERS made redundant with the collapse of the Whelan Group yesterday expressed their anger at the National Assets Management Agency’s role in the liquidation of the quarrying group.

In the High Court last Friday, the group’s directors withdrew their petition for court protection after NAMA — which took over €50 million of debts owed to Anglo Irish Bank — opposed examinership because of the proposed large write down of secured debts.

The move resulted in the court winding up five Whelan Group companies with the loss of 140 jobs.

Yesterday, over 100 former employees attended a meeting with the liquidator, Moore Stevens Nathan at the West County Hotel in Ennis, to collect their P45 slips and to find out their statutory entitlements.

Gerard O’Brien worked as sales rep for the group for nine years. He said: “NAMA hung us out to dry. It is very sad for everyone. There were lads there 30 and 40 years. There was a great camaraderie. NAMA killed the ‘laying duck’ and once you cease trading, you make no money.

“This is very sad for the Whelan family and Paddy Whelan. They built the company up from nothing. I believe that there is a still a viable business there.”

Another former employee, Mike Curran, also hit out at the move. “NAMA should have allowed the business to continue, but it pulled the plug as it has the full and final say.

“It is tough on everyone here today. It is tough on other people that are owed money that have no prospect of getting it now, whereas if there was work continuing, people might have been paid and got their money back.

“We are on the dole now. It is not nice. The last time I was in the dole office was 1987. We are all fit for work but where are they going to go?”

Mr Curran said that “the Whelan family did their best to keep the company afloat, but when you have NAMA involved, it is end of story, you can’t go any further, you have to shut it down”.

“I was there 22 and a half years and I saw the Whelan kids grow up in the business, Paddy was a fantastic man to keep it going when other people would have walked away from it.”

Clare Fianna Fáil TD, Timmy Dooley confirmed yesterday that he has written to the chairman of NAMA, Frank Daly to ascertain the rationale behind the decision. In his letter, Mr Dooley said: “It seems to me that examinership would at least have provided an opportunity for the company to prepare a viability plan which could have seen some return to creditors and potential to save some jobs.”

He said yesterday that the taxpayer is now dealing with the fall-out of the liquidation and it would have been to the taxpayer’s benefit if the group was given the opportunity to put in place a viability plan.

A spokesman for Moore Stevens Nathan said that the priority in the process is the workers at this time.

“It is very early days. The liquidation process will take a long time, a minimum of 12 months.”

He said that “a significant number of the assets are charged to the banks”.