Over one hundred people will lose their jobs at Bewley’s café in Grafton St, mainly because of the greed of Johnny Ronan.
Ronan’s company, Ronan Group Real Estate (RGRE), is charging astronomical rents which amount to about 30% of the income of the café.
Ronan was one of the first property speculators to be bailed out by NAMA. While the state agency took over his bad loans, developers like Ronan were put on a salary of €200,000 a year.
He kept up his high life style, famously spending €60,000 on jaunt on his private jet to Morocco.
Now he sits back while workers lose their jobs.
We need decisive state action to force people like Ronan to slash his rents. The state should then move in and take a majority share of Bewley’s.
This would both preserve jobs and enable the café to ride out the storm until normal times eventually return. It would also preserve a cultural symbol of Dublin life.
