The deadline for appealing a decision to downgrade four luxury Dublin hotels from five-star to four-star status will pass today.
Excellence in Tourism Ltd, the company which rates hotels on behalf of Fáilte Ireland, announced last month that the Shelbourne, the St Stephen's Green, the Radisson, Stillorgan Road, the Conrad, and Jurys, Ballsbridge, were to be downgraded on foot of inspections carried out this year and in 2003.
The announcement was described as "premature" by the Irish Hotels' Federation (IHF), which stated that it did not give the hotels the opportunity to appeal the decision, a spokeswoman said.
Although the appeal period for the four hotels is up today, it will be some time before the final decision is made, according to the spokeswoman. All four hotels indicated that they would be requesting a review of the decision. However, Fáilte Ireland declined to say last night whether any of the hotels had lodged an appeal.
An independent review group comprising two IHF nominees, two Fáilte Ireland nominees and and an independent chairperson would review any appeal and would make recommendations to the Fáilte Ireland executive in a report, she said.
These findings would then be presented to the board which would make the final decision.
Following that, the hotels concerned would have two options. They could either accept the decision or chose to become de-classified, the spokeswoman said.
A Fáilte Ireland spokeswoman said that the appeals process had not been finalised yet because the appeals system had never been tested before.