NAMA places McNamara firm into receivership

A flagship construction company owned by beleaguered Lisdoonvarna-born developer Bernard McNamara has been placed in receivership by the National Asset Management Agency (NAMA).

The development means that NAMA and the banks have effectively taken control of Michael McNamara and Company, which Bernard McNamara, who has admitted debts of some €1.5billion, had desperately tried to distance from his personal solvency difficulties.
Mr McNamara, a former Fianna Fáil member of Clare County Council, reluctantly agreed to the appointment of a statutory receiver to Michael McNamara and Company after NAMA rejected survival plans for the family-owned firm.
About 400 people are directly employed by the building firm, which was founded by his father.
The group’s prestigious private work included part of the Point Village in the Dublin docklands, the Killanin Stand at Ballybrit racecourse in Galway and the Shelbourne Hotel. The company also secured many lucrative State-financed projects including hospital projects, social housing schemes and road projects.
Following the appointment of accountancy and financial advisory firm Farrell Grant Sparks as statutory receiver, NAMA shut all of the company’s building sites.
When news of the shutdown emerged, scores of construction workers and sub-contractors protested outside building sites in Tallaght Institute of Technology in Dublin and at Letterkenny.
Michael McNamara and Company is currently working on a number of public projects including the construction of a new €22million A&E unit and three-floor medical unit extension at Letterkenny General Hospital.
His serious financial difficulties came to light earlier this year when Davy Stockbrokers sued him personally on foot of the ill-fated €412million deal to purchase the Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend.
They sought to get their hands on details of his shareholding in the family construction firm but McNamara stepped down as its chief in order to protect the company from his personal woes.
Mr McNamara admitted in court proceedings earlier this year that he was broke.