{"id":280543,"date":"2026-02-04T16:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T16:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/280543\/"},"modified":"2026-02-04T16:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T16:35:07","slug":"state-paid-red-cow-moran-hotel-firm-more-than-e80m-over-three-years-to-house-asylum-seekers-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/280543\/","title":{"rendered":"State paid Red Cow Moran Hotel firm more than \u20ac80m over three years to house asylum seekers \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Pretax profits at the one of the largest providers of accommodation for International Protection (IP) applicants, the Red Cow Moran Hotel almost doubled to \u20ac11.32 million in 2023.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Guestford Ltd operates Red Cow Moran Hotel on the Naas Road on the western outskirts of Dublin and new accounts show that pre-tax profits increased by 84 per cent to \u20ac11.32 million in 2023 as revenues surged by 54 per cent or \u20ac11.45 million from \u20ac21.21 million to \u20ac32.66 million on the back of the hotel\u2019s IP business.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Figures published by the Department of Integration show that in 2023, Guestford Ltd received the third highest of the accommodation providers to IP applicants receiving \u20ac26.5 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The firm has continued to prosper from its State contract to house IP applicants and in 2024 was paid \u20ac35 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In the first nine months of 2025, Guestford Ltd received \u20ac25.3 million from the State to accommodate IP applicants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The hotel is \u201ccurrently privately booked, during this time we will not be taking new guest reservations. We apologise for any inconvenience and look forward to welcoming you back again soon,\u201d according to a notice on its website.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The revenues generated by the hotel from its State contract for accommodating IP applicants compare to 2019 revenues of \u20ac14.32 million when the four-star hotel was open to paying hotel guests.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The hotel, which opened in 1996, is owned and operated by the Moran family and has 320 bedrooms. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Four members of the Moran family are registered as directors of Guestford Ltd \u2013 Karen Moran, Thomas Moran jnr, Michael Moran and Tracey Moran.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Businessman Tom Moran, who purchased the site on the Naas Road in the late 1980s and set up the hotel, held on to it in 2014 when selling off his nine Moran Bewley\u2019s hotels to Dalata for \u20ac445 million. Mr Moran died in March 2023 following an illness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The accounts show that operating profits for 2023 increased 69 per cent to \u20ac13.43m and interest payments of \u20ac2.1 million reduced profits to a pre-tax profit of \u20ac11.32 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The company recorded a profit after tax of \u20ac9.68 million after a corporation tax charge of \u20ac1.64 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Numbers employed increased by 57 during 2023 from 175 to 232 as staff costs increased from \u20ac3.9 million to \u20ac4.8 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Directors\u2019 pay rose from \u20ac428,900 to \u20ac482,225.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">At the end of December 2023, the company\u2019s shareholder funds totalled \u20ac35.66 million that included accumulated profits of \u20ac19.9 million.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The company\u2019s cash funds more than doubled from \u20ac3 million to \u20ac7.16 million.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pretax profits at the one of the largest providers of accommodation for International Protection (IP) applicants, the Red&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,615,61,32652,60],"class_list":["post-280543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-international-protection-accommodation-services-ipas","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=280543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}