127 jobs to go in liquidation

ALMOST 90 Irish jobs have been lost as another major architecture firm has fallen foul of the collapse of the construction industry.

Murray O’Laoire Architects (MOLA) employed 250 people just two years ago but that had fallen to 127 with a series of redundancies since the recession hit the sector. The company told remaining staff — 87 of them at offices in Dublin, Limerick and Cork — yesterday morning that the company is going into liquidation.

In a statement, the directors acknowledged the contribution of the wonderful, talented and tremendously loyal staff and thanked them for their professionalism and support over the years.

“The firm is unable to meet its current financial obligations as a result of cumulative bad debts and the ongoing difficulty of securing profitable work, as well as the increasing difficulties in getting paid on time, or at all,” it said.

A liquidator has yet to be appointed but it is expected that a meeting of all its creditors, including the 127 staff, may take place next week. The liquidation process will involve the pursuit of funds owed to the company and the sale of any capital assets, before dividing the entire assets between creditors and staff.

“We will do all we possibly can within the constraints of the liquidation process to minimise the impact of this event on our creditors, our clients and our staff. The company is committed to an orderly winding down of its affairs and will hold a creditors’ meeting within the coming days,” the statement said.

MOLA made a number of rounds of redundancies in the past year as well as reducing salaries in an effort to stay afloat, ahead of yesterday’s announcement.

Since its establishment in 1979 by Hugh Murray and Sean O’Laoire, the firm had become one of the country’s leading architecture practices, with recent award-winning designs including the new Thomond Park stadium in Limerick, which won an RIAI Irish Architecture Award last year, and the Cork School of Music. In recent years, it had opened offices in Slovakia, Russia, Libya, Germany, Barbados and Abu Dhabi.

Among the ongoing projects in which it was involved is the design of the €750 million National Children’s Hospital in Dublin, but a spokesperson for the hospital development board said the design and architectural planning would be unaffected as MOLA was part of a consortium for the project.

The firm also won awards and acclaim for the Galway and Mayo Institute of Technology in Galway and was behind Athlone Town Centre, the Green Building in Dublin’s Temple Bar and the Irish Pavillion at the Hannover Expo 2000.

In Cork, the company has been working on the restoration of Christchurch in the city centre and the €1 million conversion of St Luke’s Church to a cultural centre. Cork city manager Joe Gavin said both projects were nearing completion but expressed sadness to hear the company was going out of business.

“They are a very reputable firm and have done a lot of great work for us over the years, including the wonderful observatory at Blackrock Castle,” he said.

The Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland (RIAI) said it was disappointed to hear of the financial problems surrounding another significant practice. It said its surveys have shown that more than half of all registered architects in the country are now out of work.

MOLA has also worked on numerous projects for Irish Rail, including involvement in the design phase of the rail interconnector from Dublin’s docklands to Inchicore, for which permission is about to be sought.