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Dublin: 16 °C Tuesday 21 May, 2013

Provisional liquidator appointed to Target Express

Workers are continuing to hold sit-ins to demand money they are owed by the company.

Image: Laura Hutton/Photocall

A PROVISIONAL LIQUIDATOR has been appointed to troubled haulage company Target Express.

Joint liquidators Steve Tennant and Michael McAteer of Grant Thornton have been appointed to the Target Express holding company College Freight Republic of Ireland, while a receiver is set to be appointed to the groups’s property holding company ASDA Property Holdings, according to RTÉ.

ASDA Property Holdings has no connection to the supermarket chain of the same name.

Employees want ‘what is owed’

Target Express employees have been staging sit-ins at depots in Galway, Carlow and Cork – with eight workers sleeping at the Cork depot last night. Workers are demanding that the company pay them “several weeks” wages which are due to them, as well as begin immediate negotiations on an acceptable redundancy package.

Spokesperson for the employees Tom Cullen said they wanted what was legally owed to them: “We have lads here who have to pay bills. We have mortgages to be paid. We want our two weeks wages,” he said.

Cullen said the only communication the workers had had with the company was an email and two phone calls yesterday, which informed them that “receivers are coming in”. He also claimed that a managing director instructed them to leave the premises as there was no money available to meet their demands.

Target Express chief executive Seamus McBrien has previously criticised the Revenue Commissioners for the way it handled the company’s case – insisting that his company was ready to pay €80,000 of its debt by Friday.

Revenue has denied that its involvement has led to the loss of almost 400 jobs.

Read: Target Express workers say they will not leave premises until they get paid>

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Comments (21 Comments)

  • Transport Companies are Hanging on by their fingertips out there. This is only the first of many. I’m just amazed that it got this far without the employees suspecting something was wrong. These poor people will have to wait months now, just to get basic statutory! Another 400 casualties of what’s rapidly becoming an all to familiar story.

    Reply
  • Reg 29/08/12 #

    Yes where are all the great outraged when you need them!

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  • Aarum 29/08/12 #

    Don’t forget the Dublin 15 branch aswell

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  • maura 29/08/12 #

    Awaiting an apology from all the bloggers critical of the revenue.

    Reply
  • Ah, the taxmen. Great bunch of lads.

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  • Why did revenue pull the plug so quickly? The MD of the company paid 280k back last Friday week with a promise of another 80k last Friday. That left 30k to be paid while 390 employees were kept in their work.Now the liquidators get their exhorbitant fees and have a jolly on the carcus….a real shame and an opportunity lost for managment, revenue and staff.

    Reply
    • Mjhint 30/08/12 #

      Pajo revenue cannot discuss the details of this. They are forbidden. Therefore the story you see before you is by no means complete. I have friends in this business that are a lot smaller than this company & they would owe maybe ?300000 & have only 10 staff. Normally the way it works is revenue will collect if money is owed over 24months. At that point no matter how small the amount is,its collect or close. In my view this is truely the start of many companies going bust in this business. I have many friends in this game & only 2 I know that are not in trouble. The problem they have is nearly always revenue based. They are all surviving on not paying vat.

      Reply
  • the revenue is going a step to far,they dont care if workers dont get their wages,or the people built up TARGET are left with nothing,

    TO THE CORK WORKERS SIT-IN STAND FAST, IAM 100% BEHIND YOUS

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    • Your reply above is based only on Targets propaganda which was released on Monday. Its the same ranting from the likes of you all the time. Revenue did not close target down, targets owners walked away and gave the middle finger to the workers last monday. Target owner should have applied for an administrator, that way the company could continue as normal under court protection and try to find an new investor, instead he choose to create a storm to make him look like the good guy.

      You might want to read the other information available in particular the comments of the liquidator who has had access to Targets books. To quote him “hopelessly insolvent”. Also the fact that a property company has now entered the picture.

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    • What’s this got to do with anything here? Not everything has to be a whingefest about the government

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    • Plus, one could hardly sign such a potentially important document when it has spelling mistakes in it

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    • Mick 29/08/12 #

      Yawn….get some education, progress your self, get a job and then you get hope…everything can’t be put on a plate all the time

      Reply
    • It’s actually not a “whingefest” I’m actually trying to do something for the country and if I’ve to plaster it all over everything that’s exactly what I will do until the Irish people wake up. And also spelling mistake fixed :)

      Reply
    • Mick 29/08/12 #

      Again, Always someone else fault…

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    • come on Catherine, doing something for the Irish people ? 89 signatures in a couple of weeks? 20 of which are probably your own . you havent even posted an argument about why you have no confidence never mind any sort of alternative. not surprising seen as your way to get people to sign it is to post only a link on a comments section on a completely unrelated story. You’d do a lot better for your country if you started doing something for your community rather than ranting online..

      Reply
    • @mick

      I have an education thank you and a job and hope that this country will be ran by people who actually care about it and it’s people not people who only care about how big there next pay check is…believe me nothing was ever put on a plate I worked for what I have … And as for it being someone else’s fault yes it is it’s the governments fault and here,s how; when Enda Kenny became Taoiseach he had a 5 point plan in that plan there was one point about how he was going to create over 100,000 jobs when all I’m hearing is there,s job losses here there and everywhere because our politicians have their heads stuck up the banks a**es.

      @Bilbo Baggins
      A couple of weeks no…just under one week yes. Actually there is only one which is my own and that was when I started it thank you. And actually it’s not only here I posted it sorry for ya but I’ve put it everywhere…Ah the reason me and a lot of other people have no confidence in this government is the simple fact that they lied their way through to get into government, our toughest budget yet is being discussed in one of the swankiest hotels in Ireland where room costs are between €140 and €600 hmm I wonder which one the politicians will choose??…and there,s plenty more.

      Reply

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