A recruitment firm named ECS Recruitment Ltd, employing 290 individuals, has had interim liquidators assigned to it by a High Court judge. Currently, the majority of ECS’s workers are agency staff subcontracted to customers. To ensure their continued employment, their contracts are to be assigned and sold. The decision to assign interim liquidators was advocated by barrister Ross Gorman, representing the company, on a Wednesday. The only director of ECS Recruitment is Daniel Curtis, residing in Churchtown, Athy, County Kildare. The company has its registered office on Leinster Street, Athy, and operates from Citywest Shopping Centre in Saggart, County Dublin.
Founded in 2018, the company’s primary function was to hire temporary and part-time employees for its clients. Initially serving the hospitality sector predominantly, ECS Recruitment faced significant struggle during the Covid-19 pandemic due to restrictive measures. However, after restriction were eased, it started recovery by expanding into catering for the construction industry. The company experienced healthy business during the course between September 2020 and 2022.
From the years 2022 to 2023, there was a shift in the hospitality sector as several of its clients transformed their hotels into accommodation for migrants, resulting in reduced demand for ECS’s services. To offset this, the firm started to service clients in the finance, healthcare, and pharmaceutical sectors. Despite these strategic changes, a recent surge in contractor and administrative expenses led to shrinking margins for the company.
The court was informed that ECS Recruitment has been operating at a loss since 2022 and is now insolvent. Its primary creditor is the Revenue Commissioners, with a debt exceeding €1.1m (£919,356) in PAYE/PRSI (€493,081/ £412,303) and VAT (€715,759/ £598,845). Although the company attempted to negotiate a ten-year payment plan, this was denied. An additional substantial amount is due to the invoice finance provider, Close Brothers Ltd, amounting to approximately €362,875 (£303,137).
In the latter part of August, the firm acknowledged its financial failure and Mr Curtis appointed a process supervisor under the Small Companies Administrative Rescue Process to formulate a salvage plan. However, when the Revenue Services decided to demand full payment of its debt, deciding not to include it in the plan, Mr Curtis made it clear that he couldn’t inject any more funds to the firm. Consequently, the process supervisor concluded that a salvage plan was impractical, recommending the firm be put into provisional liquidation.
This triggered the application submitted on Wednesday, backed by legal representation for the Revenue services. Based on the information presented, Mr Justice Owens appointed Dessie Morrow from Azets Ireland and Declan Haney from Crowe Ireland as temporary liquidators.
The appointed liquidators were endowed with certain powers, namely, preserving the company’s assets, licensing the company’s operation to an external party, as well as selling off its business.