'Tribune' closes after failure to find buyer

THE SUNDAY Tribunehas finally closed after the receiver failed to find a a buyer for the newspaper.

All 43 staff received a letter from the receiver Jim Luby yesterday informing them that they are to be made redundant from next Monday.

The loss-making paper ceased publication on February 1st in an attempt to give the receiver four weeks to find a buyer. Advertisements were placed in other newspapers and though there were reports of some expressions of interest, no buyer came forward.

Editor Nóirín Hegarty said the announcement was a “very sad day for indigenous journalism”.

Hegarty, who has been at the helm for the last six years, singled out the story which led to the resignation of ceann comhairle John O’Donoghue as the highlight of her time in charge.

Freedom of Information documents published by the newspaper revealed Mr O’Donoghue’s lavish lifestyle as a government minister.

The paper’s only staff photographer Mark Condren won AIB Photojournalist of the Year for the second year in a row earlier this month. “We have great people here, really good journalists and that is the sad part of it,” she said.

“It is hard to see how a quality standalone newspaper can essentially make do in the present environment. The competition is intense.”

The paper was founded in 1980 and closed in 1982. It was resurrected by Vincent Browne as editor and enjoyed some success in the 1980s.

Independent News and Media (INM) took a 29.9 per cent stake in the publication in 1992. The Sunday Tribunehas rarely made money and was seen as a bulwark against the Sunday Times.

The newspaper had accumulated loss of €62.7 million by the end of 2009. The shareholders’ deficit, most notably to INM, was €59 million.

The paper relaunched in a tabloid format in September. The last ABC figures showed its circulation fell 17.2 per cent in the first half of 2010 in comparison with the same period in 2009, down from 65,727 to 54,400.

INM told the Sunday Tribuneboard in early February that it was no longer prepared to support the newspaper, which was losing about €2.75 million a year, but had agreed to pay the staff to give the receiver an opportunity to secure an investor for the title.

INM said yesterday the receiver would continue to look for an investor but it was likely that the only thing that would be of interest to investors was the title.

Staff are only to receive statutory redundancy of two weeks for each year of service and will have to wait six to eight months to receive their money.

NUJ Irish secretary Séamus Dooley said the receiver could only offer statutory redundancy if the company went into liquidation, which it is likely to do now.

In that event redundancy payments have to be made by the State’s insolvency fund which is under severe pressure at the moment because of the number of workers claiming from it.

Mr Dooley said he had sought a meeting with INM management. “We will be asking them to meet what we feel is their moral obligation. A real hardship would be suffered because of the delay in payment.

“We don’t believe it is tolerable that a newspaper with the resources of Independent Newspapers should allow this to happen.”

Mr Dooley said the politicians campaigning in the general election had lost sight of the hardship inflicted by delays in paying through the insolvency fund.

Fine Gael’s communications spokesman Leo Varadkar described the paper’s closure as a “sad day for Irish journalism”.

“Over the last three decades it has broken stories of national importance and maintained a high standard of integrity,” he said.