Montrose Hotel shuts for months as 80 staff laid off

THE OWNERS of the long-established Montrose Hotel in Dublin have closed it for at least three months and laid off about 80 staff.

Staff summoned to a meeting yesterday morning were told the hotel was unprofitable and would be closed for renovations until mid-March at the earliest.

The news was delivered by consultant Niall Saul, until recently the human resources manager for developer Bernard McNamara’s building companies. Mr McNamara led a group of investors who bought the hotel for more than €40 million in 2006. One of his companies manages the hotel but he no longer owns the building, according to Mr Saul.

It is understood the hotel has been losing money in recent months and bookings for the first two months of this year were poor.

Mr Saul told staff it was hoped to reopen the Montrose as a three-star hotel, but staff pressed him to give a written confirmation of the planned reopening date.

When The Irish Timesvisited the hotel yesterday afternoon, staff were occupying the common areas of the building and management were nowhere to be seen.

The last guests were preparing to leave or be transferred to other hotels, while office staff were ringing customers to cancel or transfer bookings. Some staff said they were prepared to sit in until management gave a clearer response to their concerns.

Jenny Sullivan, who has worked at the hotel for 25 years, said she was waiting for a letter confirming the date of reopening before deciding what to do next. The hotel employs 30 full-time and 50 part-time staff, some of whom have worked there since PV Doyle opened it in 1964.

Staff said the first indication they got that something was amiss was when management phoned them late on Monday night to organise yesterday’s meeting.

Frank Roche, a hall porter with 37 years of service, said he was “gutted” but not surprised. “Over the last five years an axe has been hanging there, and the only question was when it was going to drop,” he said, adding the hotel was closed for Christmas but was nearly full over the new year.

A sign on the hotel front said accommodation was available from €79 a room but in recent times rates had been cut to as low as half this. Restaurant supervisor John Fitzgerald said the Montrose had resorted to charging “Mickey Mouse” rates to compete.

Last night, Mr Saul said the hotel was “tired” and unprofitable, and it had been decided to renovate the ground floor and make it more attractive. He said staff had been issued with letters confirming that their employment terms would not be changed without talks with Siptu, which talks begin later this month.

The Montrose is managed by the Mercer Accommodation Group, owned by Mr McNamara, which also runs the Mercer and Tara Towers hotels. It is owned by Lonnegan Trading Company Ltd, whose directors are Pádraig Breen and estate agent David Courtney.

Last year, a report commissioned by the Irish Hotels Federation said a quarter of hotel rooms needed to be closed down because the sector was insolvent.