Country and Irish music artist Michael English, based in Kildare, was directed by the Workplace Relations Commission to compensate Matt McGranaghan, a violinist, €44,000 last week. McGranaghan was unexpectedly dismissed via email despite his six-year association with English. The music company MEPC Music Ltd, which is co-owned by English and Paul Claffey, a country music promoter, was behind McGranaghan’s dismissal. Despite this, its financial standing shows it’s capable of financing the compensation, with end-of-year accounts in 2022 revealing €376,000 in retained profits and a €92,945 annual profit, despite the Covid pandemic’s impact. English had told the dismissed musician in a meeting that he didn’t need a full-time violinist stating he could easily find a replacement.
Switching gears, Brian MacGoey, a Domino’s franchise pioneer, decided to join the pizza chain during its search for initial Irish franchise owners in the early 2000s. The once under-21 Irish rugby international remortgaged his house to come up with the €190,000 required to establish a Limerick store. Before long, his venture was flourishing, he opened several other stores, and established himself as the largest Domino’s franchise owner in the west. MacGoey, who also spends time in Portugal, expanded into the care homes business before divesting himself of shares four years prior.
We’ve heard that he’s recently splurged and purchased an extravagant apartment in Lansdowne Place, Dublin 4, a place where property prices reside between €1.5 million and almost €7 million – a significant sum, even for someone quite affluent.
Reports of a dispute over a car park space in a swanky apartment has escalated to the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB). Landlords of the lavish Lansdowne Place, Dublin’s priciest residential area, evidently misled tenants about car park availability. This arose to the surface with the Capital Dock development in Dublin’s southern docklands, where rent started from €3,200 monthly after its 2019 unveiling. Initially, car parking spaces seemed enticing to potential tenants; however, they weren’t formally included in individual lease agreements.
A tenant at Capital Dock entered rent arrears for a month, and subsequently, his parking facility was clamped down. Protesting to the RTB, the landlord countered, pointing out that it wasn’t due to arrears but due to an oil leakage from the tenant’s car. The landlord confessed that parking allotment isn’t a guarantee and said this clause would have been explicitly stated in the lease agreement had it been included in the rent. Despite the landlord’s argument, the RTB declared the tenant had been subjected to unfair treatment. While advising the tenant to pay the rent arrears, the Board ordered the landlord to shell out €1,337.60 to the tenant in compensation for unjustly revoking his parking right for two months.
Moving to the Google Boland’s Mills development in Dublin, the facility is scheduled to open its doors to the populace this coming autumn. Currently, only two ground floor layout slots are awaiting local business lease contracts. One of these is expected to transform into a pub, despite local resident protests. Google, meantime, is eyeing to convert the remaining space, initially set for a cafe or shop, into a gym, as per details on their proposal submitted to the Dublin City Council. Last week, Google expressed eagerness to fill up all their ground-floor slots before the official opening, adding that a gym has shown keen interest in occupying the vacant area.
Google is clearly optimistic about their new project involving offices, eateries, and retailers. They foresee it capturing the public’s interest. Last week, they submitted a trademark application for a logo with the slogan “Boland’s Mills, since 1873” for use on numerous consumer goods, such as clothing, shoes, and hats. While there may be a greater demand for Google merchandise in Silicon Valley, Ringsend should not be overlooked either.
In other news, Manchester City’s manager, Pep Guardiola, made headlines last week. He showed gratitude for his first-team support staff, from chefs to bus drivers, by giving each of them a bonus of £10,000. This gesture of appreciation for their contributions to the team’s triumph in the past season prompted flashbacks for those working in Newstalk’s sports department during Euro 2012.
The Second Captains Podcast recently retold a story where Denis O’Brien, the station’s previous owner and partial financer of Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni’s paycheck at the time, visited Frank Cronin, the company’s CEO, post-tournament. He commended Cronin for the station’s coverage of the Euros and left him €1,000 in cash to distribute amongst the sports department members. Unfortunately, the €80 each staff member ended up with fell short of Pep’s generous bonus.
On a different note, it seems that Young Fine Gael disagrees with Health Minister Stephen Donnelly’s proposed social media ban for those under 16. They described the notion of teenagers being incapable of using social media responsibly as an outright insult. They argued that in Ireland, 15-year-olds are allowed to work and pay taxes, yet the proposal suggests they shouldn’t be able to use social media. Young Fine Gael labeled Donnelly’s plans as “delusional”, “unworkable”, “lazy” and “ill-conceived”. And of course, they expressed their disapproval on social media – the preferred platform of the youth to air their sentiments.
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