NAMA Forces Iconic Builder Into Receivership

It was one of the most high profile building companies of Celtic Tiger era, but last Thursday night a receiver was appointed to McNamara Construction.

It immediately halted work on several high profile building projects around Ireland, and cast doubt over thousands of jobs in sub-contracting firms.

The state agency established to take over the toxic property-related loans of Ireland's main banks - NAMA - rejected a business plan put forward by McNamara, and appointed the receiver.

It was the first time NAMA had exercised the statutory enforcement powers given to it in legislation.

Developer Bernard McNamara resigned from the company, founded by his father, earlier this year in the hope that his own financial troubles (debts of €1.5bn) would not impact on the firm.

But after several months of talks between the agency and management, NAMA decided the firm was no longer viable.

McNamara was behind some of the most ambitious construction projects of the past two decades including the refurbishment of the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, the building of the Radisson Hotel in Galway, a €25m research library in UCC, a new hospital block at St Vincent's in Dublin, several road projects, and it led the controversial purchase of a Glass Bottle site in Dublin Docklands.

It is also one of the most active construction companies still operating - but Thursday's decision has thrown the future of these projects into doubt.

Work immediately stopped on several projects including a new building at NUI Galway, a hospital block in Letterkenny, Co. Donegal and an Institution of Technology in Tallaght Dublin.

The company employs 400 people directly, but there are fears for several thousand jobs as work was being carried out by a range of sub-contractors under McNamara's leadership.

Workers at some of the construction sites revealed they had not been paid for four months, and some sub-contractors were left with unpaid bills of hundreds of thousands of euro.