Second report says sell Great Southern

The state-owned Great Southern hotel chain in Ireland should be sold off to the private sector, a leading consultancy firm said last week.

The chain is owned by Aer Rianta, the Irish airports operating company, which in turn is owned by the government but operates independently.

The Warburg Dillon Read report for the Irish government is the second such report to recommend that the eight-strong chain of hotels be sold. A previous report by Arthur Andersen suggested that selling the hotels one at a time could fetch as much as IR£80m.

The chain is thought to need as much as IR£30m for refurbishment.

The workers' trade union, Mandate, opposed the Arthur Andersen sell-off plan because it was worried about possible job losses that could follow full privatisation. This time, opposition comes from influential independent Irish MP Jackie Healy-Rae, who, with three others, holds the balance of power for the minority Irish government.

Healy-Rae says that he wants to protect the 600 jobs in the hotel chain. Three of the hotels are in his Kerry constituency. The other five are in Shannon, Rosslare, Dublin Airport, and two in Galway.

The minister responsible for Aer Rianta, Mary O'Rourke, is unlikely to rush into a sale based on the latest report alone, but would be expected to seek more information from Aer Rianta.

by Brendan Nolan