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The Mount Juliet Hotel Shane McDonald

Mount Juliet's new owners are planning a €10 million revamp after 'significant' losses

Green fees are going to be hiked at the Co Kilkenny golf resort as part of the turnaround.

THE NEW OWNERS of the prestigious Mount Juliet golf resort are planning a €10 million revamp of the property in an attempt to turn it around from “significant” losses.

Property investment firm Tetrarch Capital has written to homeowners living on the Co Kilkenny estate to notify of its plans for the 500-acre property, which includes a hotel and spa, and a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course.

The letter said the company was a “significant loss-maker” in 2014 due to “extraordinarily high” costs and low green fees when compared to other leading golf courses, according to the Irish Times.

A Tetrarch spokesman confirmed to TheJournal.ie that the company was spending €1.1 million on new golfing equipment as part of its plan to bring the course back into profit.

The outlay formed part of a wider €10 million-plus upgrade at Mount Juliet which would include increasing the number of bedrooms.

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Million-euro losses

Last year the new owners flagged spending up to €5 million refurbishing the hotel and spa as part of a plan that would add between 30 and 40 new rooms.

The business, which changed hands last June, had delivered an operating loss of €1.65 million in 2013 and €3.3 million the previous year, according to its most-recent accounts.

Smiles Dental founder Emmet O’Neill and Brehon Capital, which later spun off its circa-€400 million property empire into Tetrarch Capital, paid an estimated €15 million to buy the golf resort from long-standing owners the Mahony family.

Luke Fitzgerald, Emmet O'Neill & Vogue Williams present Re.Store, a dynamic new Irish food, coffee and convenience concept 2 Businessman Emmet O'Neill, centre Naoise Culhane Naoise Culhane

O’Neill spent five months as a director of Mount Juliet before stepping down in December. In October he was made chief executive of his uncle Denis O’Brien’s Topaz petrol station chain.

The business’s current directors are Tetrarch Capital’s Damien Gaffney and Michael McElligott, whose firm previously bought the Marker Hotel in Dublin and Powerscourt Hotel in Wicklow.

Former Whites of Wexford general manager Peter Wilson has been appointed Mount Juliet’s new head and he said he was keen to put in place the investment plans of the resort’s new owners.

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10 Comments
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    Mute Allo Allo
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    Sep 9th 2024, 8:44 AM

    If bad tenants overstay long enough there is an outside chace Sinn Fein will ride to the rescue on a white horse and give all the rights to the tenant regardless and bequeath to them a free gaff.

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    Mute Eoin .h
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    Sep 9th 2024, 8:48 AM

    @Allo Allo: took sooner than usual for someone to mention Sinn Féin today in an irrelevant article

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    Mute Paul O'Mahoney
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    Sep 9th 2024, 9:05 AM

    @Eoin .h: Well, their policy on this is not balanced, and they continue to be tenant centric. They have stated that they want to reduce the rental market by 50% with 300,000 rental properties, per CSO , removing 150000 will not help , 30,000 a year on average BTW. Where will these people go?

    If 30,000 properties were to come on the market, great, but people rent for a host of reasons, affordability being probably the biggest one.

    This was stated in their recent policy document on the property sector

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    Mute Colette Byrne
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    Sep 9th 2024, 9:24 AM

    @Paul O’Mahoney: affordability? You can get a mortgage for less than a month’s rent these days.
    At least you own something, and you can rent a room to help you pay back your mortgage.
    And you’re helping someone with a place to live. If house prices drop, with the introduction of social housing, people wouldn’t need grants,
    They could afford to buy.
    Anything is possible, with the will to change.
    Sick of seeing apts being built, to rent, one set I pass frequently have been sitting idle for a few months, in a housing crisis.
    Build with no car spaces, only bicycle yet advertised for over 50s.
    Who do they think they are kidding.

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    Mute Paul O'Mahoney
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    Sep 9th 2024, 9:49 AM

    @Colette Byrne: There are so many facets to this problem that it’s difficult to come up with solutions that will solve it , and all reasonable people in the country want it solved, but reducing supply isn’t the best approach.

    Getting a mortgage will need 10% deposit so 30- 40k it’s not an easy thing to do, Grants in my opinion are needed, when we bought our first house we got a £2000 first time buyer grant the house cost 39k and it helped with basics like a flooring etc.

    Solutions have to be holistic and non-political, there are 160000 vacant houses, flats etc in Ireland even one third of those been fixed up would help….but it hasn’t happened. Why too many vested interests and wrong policies

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    Mute Eoin .h
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    Sep 9th 2024, 9:51 AM

    @Paul O’Mahoney: what they actually said is they want to reduce the size of private rental properties as a percentage of the overall housing stock over the next 5 years. This plan includes an increase of 35,000 private rental properties, it’s just a lower increase compared to other sectors.

    Btw how can they be tenant centric whilst also reducing the number of rented properties (which they’re not actually doing)? Read and understand their policy.

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    Mute John Moylan
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    Sep 9th 2024, 10:03 AM

    @Colette Byrne: you can get mortgage theses days : but not for the price of the house you’re currently renting……………being approved for a notional figure at which there are s.f.a. houses available, means nothing

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    Mute Ali123
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    Sep 9th 2024, 10:40 AM

    @Allo Allo: I’ve seen that happen recently – don’t have to wait for Sinn Fein, it’s already started.

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    Mute Donal Ronan
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    Sep 9th 2024, 11:39 AM

    @Paul O’Mahoney: Paul. That figure of 160000 should be taken with a grain of salt. I live in the country and within 1 kilometre of me are 5 of those so called vacant properties. Yes they are, but they are only fit to be knocked. It’s nothing to do with location, the area is in high demand.

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    Mute Paul O'Mahoney
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    Sep 9th 2024, 12:11 PM

    @Donal Ronan: Oh I understand that they reckon there are only 100000 that might be habitable with renovations, but the majority are probably in cities ex council flats etc came across a website called derelict Ireland they might provide better stats.

    They were featured in a NY Times article recently but that focused on Cork.

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    Mute Alex
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    Sep 9th 2024, 8:40 AM

    RTB is utterly useless.

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    Mute Paul O'Mahoney
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    Sep 9th 2024, 8:56 AM

    @Alex: You are being kind with that comment.

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    Mute Lina Stein
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    Sep 9th 2024, 10:18 AM

    @Alex: they helped me in resolving my dispute with my former landlord.
    Threshold are also good allies when needed.
    It’s very stressful for all parties involved.

    18
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    Mute Buster Lawless
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    Sep 9th 2024, 8:37 AM

    This is a brilliant, transparent & sensible idea…… But there’s WAY too many vested interests in maintaining the status quo so it’ll never get ‘legs’

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    Mute thomas molloy
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    Sep 9th 2024, 9:30 AM

    They should help landlords struggling to exit housing people with their life savings trapped.

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    Mute Sylvia Power
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    Sep 9th 2024, 9:49 AM

    Sorry but is anyone going to call out the claim that organisations keep making that “small landlords are fleeing the rental market” as completely untrue? CSO data has shown that unregistered tenancies have increased massively, while registered ones have dropped, meaning there is a huge increase of landlords who are not paying tax and taking cash rent. There is almost 80,000 more unregistered rental properties in the private rental market Rental prices, demand and tenant’s desperation have never been higher, so can we acknowledge here that the idea that the current landscape is somehow pushing landlords out is a misrepresentation of the facts.

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    Mute John Moylan
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    Sep 9th 2024, 10:02 AM

    @Sylvia Power: No, it isn’t a misrepresentation of the facts. That previously unregistered or undisclosed tenancies are now being formalised does not create or add a single bedspace – and those that are leaving (from both registered & unregistered tenancies) continues.

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    Mute thomas molloy
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    Sep 9th 2024, 10:04 AM

    @Sylvia Power: You are in denial and guilt. Only foreign funds that can afford their own legal teams can risk letting people into their property. 75 year old with PRTB emboldened tenant no rent paid to pay service charge etc and two years €25 thousand of legal fees to be paid try and get property back Sell up while you can is the advice.

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    Mute Ciaran O'Mara
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    Sep 9th 2024, 10:48 AM

    @Sylvia Power: mom and pop landlords are fleeing in droves. Why would you stay? Rent increase limited to 2% and the spectre of a rent freeze under SF. Useless slow RTB. Tenants trash the place and you wait years to recover the cost, if you are lucky. You would be out of your mind to be a landlord

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    Mute Sylvia Power
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    Sep 9th 2024, 11:47 AM

    @Ciaran O’Mara: The overwhelming majority of tenants do not “trash the place” or not pay rent. That’s just a lie. A bog standard bed apartment in Dublin is now €2000 per month. I have absolutely no idea why landlords are whinging when everything in the housing market benefits them at the moment.

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    Mute Sylvia Power
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    Sep 9th 2024, 11:50 AM

    @John Moylan: It’s nothing to do with adding bedspace. It’s that landlords are finding it more lucrative to not pay tax, possible “fleeing the rental market” means going cash under the table with desperate renters or an unregulated Airbnb. Anecdotally, the vast majority of people I know who are renting are in unregistered tenancies because the landlord doesn’t want to pay tax.

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    Mute brian o'leary
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    Sep 9th 2024, 1:33 PM

    @Ciaran O’Mara: some landlords are moving into their rented properties, on paper anyway. Put a bill in their name, rent through rent a room, collect a bit of cash to keep in under the limit, not tied to the 2%, they can even do the renters credit. If they have kids over 16, move them in, on paper.

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    Mute Chutes
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    Sep 9th 2024, 1:36 PM

    @brian o’leary: Can confirm. Ex-landlord said he moved in to the RTB, I still live in the same town and have checked a few times. Bllsht! It’s very profitable to be a lying landlord these days!!

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    Mute Lina Stein
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    Sep 9th 2024, 10:41 AM

    They aren’t painted this way in central Europe where most residencies are rented..
    In fact, in Germany leases can be passed onto the heir when the main tenant dies and so on.. There are still leases from the 30′s-40′s-50′s that are alive and kicking!
    So that’s 3 generations.
    Naturally, there are rent increases, and building management fees the tenant has to pay.

    18
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    Mute Lina Stein
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    Sep 9th 2024, 10:40 AM

    Why are tenants always painted as the evil ones in Ireland?
    Did any of you ever live overseas and rent a house or apartment for a longer duration?
    You were the tenants! Imagine!
    Is it a historic reflection of poverty -if you rent you are therefore poor/uneducated/antisocial?
    What about all those with money, social standing who rent out of choice not necessity? Should they be painted as villains too?
    Aren’t the tenants a crucial part of the housing industry as they (or through them) the landlord has a regular income?
    How about changing the perspective a little and when you decide to rent out your house, you do with all the knowledge and research done?
    Many landlords go onto it without actually learning what’s involved in having a tenant.
    You either go the whole hog or not at all!

    21
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    Mute Vinny Hughes
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    Sep 9th 2024, 12:31 PM

    Far too much common sense in this suggestion.
    It won’t happen.
    This government don’t do common sense they like things be complicated, over priced and non functional.
    Prime example RTB

    13
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    Mute Soundy Sound
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    Sep 9th 2024, 12:14 PM

    As long as landlords are routinely allowed keep deposits for normal wear and tear, there will be no fairness in the system.
    Bad tenants, while problematic, are a small minority. Landlords unfairly withholding deposits seems to be the norm.
    Landlords shouldn’t hold the deposit – a third party should and they would adjudicate where there is dispute.

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    Mute bruce banner
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    Sep 9th 2024, 9:12 AM

    Even better idea… Make everyone homeless and give estate agents the countrys full budget per annum.

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    Mute Nicholas Grubb
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    Sep 9th 2024, 2:06 PM

    The obvious thing to do, is to re purpose the RTB to be an Airbnb look alike. Let them do the check in. Mind the deposit, and pay the landlord the rent monthly, minus %, regardless of not the tenant has paid or not. Then do the check out. Any disputes, deal with them in house.
    What terrorises landlords, is where someone stops pay, trashes the place etc.. RTB then finds for the landlord, along with the legal fees, often coming to well over 30K. Has one of these settlements ever been paid up.???????

    10
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    Mute Chutes
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    Sep 9th 2024, 1:20 PM

    Awarded €2525 by RTB. Landlord who not only owns the house and works but has his own business now says he’ll pay at €10 per week. Says he can’t afford it. He raised the rent I had been paying by €600 per month for his new tenants yet says now he can’t afford to pay.
    He makes a mockery of the RTB system and will get away with it because the RTB tell me their funds for enforcement are limited and a judge would likely approve the landlord’s offer.
    My option now is go to court to try get what was awarded. I have to wonder what the point of the RTB is when he can get away with that sort of behaviour. It’s an insult to me and to justice!

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    Mute ROBBIE AMBROSE
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    Sep 9th 2024, 1:44 PM

    @Chutes: my guy avoided the letters from the RTB and as a result, I can’t even get a judgement against him………

    The RTB is not fit for purpose……………

    8
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