HKR staff to get redundancy pay following meeting

STAFF AT Irish architectural practice HKR are to receive redundancy payments following a meeting yesterday with company chief executive Jerry Ryan.

The staff had earlier been told that they were being made redundant without statutory payments.

In a letter to staff dated July 31st, company director Paul Birch said that “due to the severe economic conditions, Horan Keoghan Ryan Limited is to cease trading from July 31st, 2011.

The company is not in a position to make a statutory redundancy payment to you. As such, you should now claim your statutory redundancy entitlements through the Social Insurance Fund.”

Staff received that letter last Friday, August 19th.

However, following queries from The Irish Times, chief executive Jerry Ryan told staff yesterday “all statutory entitlements” will be paid as a result of the redundancies at the Irish business.

He subsequently confirmed to The Irish Timesall redundancy payments, holiday and expense entitlements and notice payments will be paid by the company. The payments will be made in three equal instalments at the end of August, September and October.

In abridged minutes of the staff meeting, seen by this newspaper, Mr Ryan said: The restructure being put in place means that HKR continues to trade in Ireland (as a branch of its UK business), the UK and internationally, through its headquarters in London.

“The restructure allows Horan Keoghan Ryan Limited (Ireland) to concentrate on collecting its debtor book and settling creditors.” Mr Ryan stressed that parent company HKR Group Limited – the majority shareholder in Horan Keoghan Ryan Limited – is trading well and has signed a number of new contracts in the UK and the Middle East.

Permanent staff in Ireland have been offered “sub-contract positions” to work on the company’s projects in London and the Middle East, but based in the Dublin office.

The company, which employed about 200 people in Ireland at the height of the boom, employed 10 full-time staff and five contract staff at its Dublin office in recent times.

Mr Ryan, who founded the company along with Tony Horan and John Keoghan in 1992, said the decision to restructure the company reflected HKR’s increasing focus on the UK and other locations worldwide.

HKR Group employs 40 people in its Abu Dhabi office, 15 in Prague and 35 in its London office. Last October it said it would close its Manchester office and expand its office in London.

The company worked on a number of high-profile projects including the refurbishment of the Shelbourne Hotel, the Whitfield Clinic in Waterford, which has since entered receivership, Charlestown shopping centre in north Dublin and commercial buildings in Dublin’s docklands.