Cork group providing accommodation to asylum seekers and Ukrainians posts €10m operating profit

Numbers employed at group rises to 116

A queue outside the International Protection Office on Mount Street in Dublin. Photograph: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie
A queue outside the International Protection Office on Mount Street in Dublin. Photograph: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie

A Cork based group which provides accommodation to International Protection (IP) applicants and Ukrainians last year recorded operating profits of €9.95 million.

Accounts for Peppard Investments Holdings Ltd show that it achieved the operating profits after recording revenues of €28.1 million.

Its subsidiary, Next Week and Co Ltd, operates the 108-bedroom Riverside Park hotel in Macroom,
and also the 230-bed Abbeyfield Hotel in Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon which is an Emergency Reception and Orientation Centre (EROC) for refugees.

The principal activity of the group continues to be that of property development, emergency reception, orientation and accommodation centres.

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Peppard Investments Holdings recorded a pretax profit of €8.7 million after paying out interest payments of €1.23 million.

The group achieved a post-tax profit of €7.53 million after incurring a corporation tax charge of €1.18 million.

The group has its registered office at Wilton, Cork and its joint owners are listed as John Crean and Tony O’Neill. Numbers employed at the group increased to 116 last year as staff costs totalled €3.12 million for 2023.

The profits take account of non-cash depreciation costs of €441.610.

The profits last year strengthened the group’s balance sheet with shareholder funds of €16.58 million at the end of December last that included accumulated profits of €7.66 million.

Next Week & Co Ltd has continued to earn substantial income from accommodating IP applicants and Ukrainians this year.

Purchase Orders published by the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth show that Next Week & Co Ltd received payments of €8.2 million for the first six months of this year.

Figures released last week by the Minister, Roderic O’Gorman, showed that the spend in accommodating IP applicants up to October 11th this year was€748.87 million and the number of IP applicants arriving here this year is projected to be 69 per cent ahead of 2023 figures.

In a written Dáil reply to Aontú's Peadar Tóibín, Minister O’Gorman revealed that the 2024 spend had already outstripped the total outlay for 2023 when the State bill for accommodating IP applicants came to €651.7m.

If the State spend for accommodating IP applicants remains at the same level for the remainder of the year, the total 2024 bill is projected to amount to be around €960 million.

The average daily spend of €2.63 million in 2023 compares to an average daily spend of €1.78 million in 2023.

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