Waterford council chase Aperee nursing home over €52,000 debt

Waterford City and County Council is chasing Aperee Living, one of the largest nursing home groups in the country, over €50,000 the company owes in unpaid commercial rates.

The local authority registered a judgment against the group over €52,168 it owes from unpaid commercial rates related to one of its homes in Ballygunner, which it had to shut down last year.

In recent months three of the 10 nursing homes run by Aperee Living were ordered to close by the State’s healthcare watchdog, due to concerns for residents’ safety and governance shortcomings. The Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) raised concerns about the misuse of residents’ money, failures to address flagged fire safety issues, and the overall fitness of Aperee to run care homes.

Hiqa moved to shut down Aperee’s care home in Ballygunner, Co Waterford, last September, before making orders to shut its home in Belgooly, Co Cork, in October, and Aperee Living Callan, Co Kilkenny, in early November. There are about 350 residents living in the seven nursing homes Aperee continues to run across the State.

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Financial records show Waterford council is seeking to recover €52,000 from Aperee Living Ballygunner Ltd, the group’s company set up to run the Co Waterford nursing home. A judgment was registered to recover the debt in late December.

A spokeswoman for the local authority confirmed “that the judgment relates to the non-payment of commercial rates”. Aperee did not respond to requests for comment on the debt judgment registered against the company.

Previous Hiqa reports detailed the precarious financial situation many nursing homes in the Aperee group found themselves in over the course of last year. In several cases suppliers withdrew services due to delays being paid, or threatened to do so.

A pest control company, Rentokil, registered a debt judgment last September, stating that it was owed more than €12,000 for work carried out for the now-shut Ballygunner nursing home. Last October Deloitte were appointed as receivers of Aperee Living Ballygunner Ltd, financial filings show.

A company that provides agency staff to nursing homes also filed a legal case against Aperee last year, over significant outstanding invoices it said it has yet to be paid by the company.

Aperee was founded by businessman David O’Shea’s Cork-based investments firm, the BlackBee Group. However, controversy over the closure of several of its homes by Hiqa led to a takeover of the company.

The group was bought by a consortium of Irish investors led by Paul Kingston, a previous chief executive of Aperee Living, who had left after a dispute with Mr O’Shea in 2022. Company records show Mr Kingston replaced Mr O’Shea as a director of Aperee Holdings Ltd, as well as the companies connected to individual nursing homes, following the takeover.

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