Vita Cortex boss responsible for redundancies, insists NAMA

THE head of the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA) said staff occupying a Cork factory in their fight for redundancy should be focusing on their former employer.

NAMA chief executive Brendan McDonagh said last night that he understands the frustration of former Vita Cortex (Ind) staff who begin the fourth day of their sit-in today.

But he said: “The focus of the employees should be on the owners/shareholders of Vita Cortex (Ind) to resolve this situation, as it is their responsibility.”

His comments came as Vita Cortex management met NAMA officials in Dublin again yesterday to discuss the redundancy issue.

The Cork foam packaging company, owned by Tipperary businessman Jack Ronan, has been occupied by a group of about 35 workers since it shut its doors last Friday. The workers are caught in a stand-off between Mr Ronan, who chairs the Vita Five Five holding company, and NAMA which has frozen a €2.5m bank account in the name of a Vita Cortex sister company.

But NAMA restated its position after the meeting that money in the bank account cannot be used to pay the redundancies.

Mr McDonagh said NAMA was contacted by the shareholder on November 23 to release funds from this account.

“We examined this request very carefully and took legal advice. NAMA never told the shareholder or the company that we were looking on it favourably,” he said.

He said the deposits are security for loans which AIB lent to another company with the same shareholder.

“These loans were acquired by NAMA from AIB. This money must be used to help pay down that company’s debt to the Irish taxpayer through NAMA. NAMA cannot simply use assets belonging to one company to make payments to another unrelated company with which it has no financial relationship. We have no legal basis to do so.”

Mr Ronan could not be contacted for comment last night.

NAMA also responded to calls from SIPTU for clarity on how the frozen funds have been used.

In a statement late last night, NAMA said the funds were put out of reach of the Vita Cortex group by AIB two-and-a-half years ago, before NAMA was set up, when they were pledged as security for loans.

“NAMA has not changed the status of these secured deposits since it acquired the loans in December 2010 from AIB and they remain clearly and legally ring-fenced to be used as security against the loans acquired by NAMA,” it said.

Meanwhile, the workers, who are sleeping on large blocks of foam on the factory floors, said they are prepared to continue their sit-in over Christmas.

“We are in this for the long haul,” Cal O’Leary said.

He and his colleagues put up Christmas decorations yesterday as local politicians visited them.

“A web of inter-company transactions has been carried out over the last number of years which has effectively stripped the assets from the Cork company,” Fine Gael TD Jerry Buttimer said. “This looks like it has been a planned and orchestrated move by people controlling the companies.”

Labour TD Ciaran Lynch said specialist equipment was removed recently from the Cork factory and moved to a plant in Athlone with links to the Vita Cortex holding company. He said the company owners have several questions to answer and that NAMA could help tease out the links between the companies.