This year marked a return to more regular fare for our business readers. The pandemic faded into the background and the more familiar subjects of work-related issues and personal finance dominated our top 10 most-read stories of the year.
1) Topping the charts at 225,814 pageviews was a particular knotty question for our in-house personal finance expert Dominic Coyle. In a story headlined “Ex-partner wants house sold years after he stopped paying mortgage”, a reader asked what to do with a joint mortgage even though the relationship had broken down, the ex-husband had stopped paying into it 10 years previously and had left the State.
She had tried to get the mortgage put in her own name but had failed and was living in the house with her child and new partner. Her former partner also wanted his name off the property and was threatening legal action over the issue.
Coyle, pointing out that it was a much more common issue than many realised, advised her that, in a roundabout way, the threat of legal action was a positive thing in that both parties wanted the same thing: her to have sole ownership of the property and the responsibility of the mortgage.
He advised her to engage legal advice of her own and also a mortgage adviser to deal with finding her a mortgage provider. In a final note of comfort, he pointed out the reluctance of the courts to force people out of family homes, which would give her time to get her affairs in order and secure a mortgage, even if it did involve an unwelcome amount of stress for her and her family over much of 2022.
2) Our second most-read story of the year, clocking an impressive 192,762 pageviews, was a work conflict story involving a legal firm and a solicitor employee. Under the headline “WRC throws out solicitor’s unfair dismissal claim against Arthur Cox”, Stephen Bourke told us how sacked solicitor Ammi Burke’s unfair dismissal claim against law firm Arthur Cox had been thrown out by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) after her summons request for additional witnesses and repeated interruptions by her mother prevented the hearing from proceeding for more than five hours.
3) Working arrangements again featured in our third most-read story, this time with a family twist. Bourke again detailed how an employment arrangement at the Waterford Castle Hotel between a brother and sister went sour. The article clocked up an impressive 188,854 pageviews.
Bernadette Walsh, the sister of Waterford-born businessman Seamus Walsh, told the WRC that she left a job in the Bahamas paying €100,000 a year to start work at the Waterford Castle Hotel and Golf Resort, which her brother Seamus owned, on a salary of €16,000 annually. She understood this to be a “starting base”.
When Ms Walsh raised the issue of money at a later date with her brother she was, she told the commission, unfairly dismissed. Ms Walsh was subsequently awarded €21,843 by the WRC.
4) Racking up 177,346 pageviews, our fourth most-read story of the year illustrated the intertwined ecosystem that is the Irish construction sector. Headlined “Fears grow for 1,000 jobs linked to construction firm Roadbridge” and written by Barry O’Halloran, it told us how there were fears for the future of about 1,000 construction jobs at building group Roadbridge. The numbers included those directly employed by the company and those by subcontractors.
Advisers IBI Corporate Finance had been seeking an investor or buyer for Co Limerick-based Roadbridge, best known for work on motorways and other State projects. Several sources confirmed that liquidation or receivership, where a bank or other creditor takes control of a business, had looked the more likely options for the group. Roadbridge owed an estimated €30 million to €35 million to Bank of Ireland, its main creditor, but also had mounting trade liabilities.
At the same time, it had building contracts worth a total of €750 million over the next 2½ to three years. Management hoped this would help attract investment or a buyer. A liquidator was subsequently appointed to the company.
5) “Family haven’t bothered transferring dead parents’ house into their names” was the headline on our fifth most-read story of the year, a perennial question for in-house personal finance expert Dominic Coyle – families and wills.
In this particular case, which garnered 175,812 pageviews, both parents had died without a will leaving six children with a stake in the family home. And the children seemed reluctant to regularise their situation in regards to the home. Dominic brooked no nonsense: his advice was to sort themselves out pronto as all they were doing was leaving an ever-increasing nightmare to their children.
6) Our sixth most-read story was the first iteration of the story that came in second in 2022 – the case of sacked solicitor Ammi Burke versus law firm Arthur Cox in the Workplace Relations Commission in an unfair dismissal case. It brought in 167,080 pageviews. Ms Burke told the WRC she had an “exemplary and unblemished” employment record and that it “was a shock dismissal”. Arthur Cox said Ms Burke had a “victim mentality” and “no understanding of how to behave in an office environment”.
7) In our seventh most-read article of the year, Dominic Coyle returns to the topic of property and wills. Under the headline “Waiting for inheritance since parents died almost 20 years ago”, a reader wonders how she can force the pace on the sale of the family home which her parents had stipulated should be sold and the proceeds divided equally. Dominic advised her that, unfortunately, unless the deadlock was broken she would have to consider going down the legal route to secure the sale of the house.
8) Coming in at number eight is a story focusing on heavy hitters in corporate Ireland. In a story written by Joe Brennan – “Five top KPMG and Deloitte Ireland partners quit for new firm” – we found out that five top corporate restructuring partners at KPMG Ireland and Deloitte Ireland had handed in their notice and planned to join forces to set up an Irish operation of UK-based debt restructuring boutique Interpath Advisory, according to sources. The story read a respectable 131,958 pageviews.
9) Our ninth most-read story concerned education and Ireland’s most expensive school, and clocked up 131,484 pageviews. Gordon Deegan told us that the company operating the State’s most expensive private fee-paying day school had recorded pretax losses of €4.53 million in 2021.
Accounts for Nord Anglia Education Ltd, which operates the Nord Anglia International primary and secondary school at Leopardstown in south Dublin, showed that its losses had dipped only fractionally from the €4.8 million recorded in 2020.
10) Propping up the bottom of our league table, but still garnering a hefty 118,346 pageviews, was a column headlined “Covid-induced surge in Irish house prices has reached tipping point” by Eoin Burke-Kennedy. It dealt with – yes, you guessed it – property and principally what will happen to the housing market after Covid.
Eoin warned us that the bigger the climb, the bigger the fall. Despite what you might think, Ireland hasn’t had as big a Covid bubble in house prices as other countries so the climbdown may be more moderate, but it’s coming.
