The family owned Lee Hotels group which operates the Mespil Hotel in Dublin 4 and the Sligo Park Hotel has paid out combined equity dividends of €6 million over the past two years.
Consolidated accounts filed by Lee Hotels show that pretax profits declined by 13 per cent to €5.19 million in the 12 months to the end of September 2024.
This followed revenues remaining flat at €24 million where the group’s Mespil Hotel contributed €14.43 million and the Sligo Park Hotel generated €9.59 million.
The four star Sligo Park Hotel in Sligo town operates 136 bedrooms while the four star Mespil Hotel has 259 rooms.
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In January 2024, Dublin City Council granted planning permission to the Mespil Hotel for an additional 47 rooms to bring the total number to 306 and included a proposal to extend the existing bar area into the terrace area on Burlington Road.
However, planning consultants for the hotel firm, BMA Planning told the council in a follow up application last December that “for operational and commercial reasons, the applicant now wishes to proceed with the bar extension in isolation from the remainder of the permitted works” and planning permission was granted in March of this year for the bar extension.
The hotel group is controlled by the Kidney family and last year Lee Hotels paid out €2 million in dividends and this followed a dividend payout of €4 million in the prior year.
Grace , Denis , Susanne and John Kidney each own 20 per cent of the business with Robert Lee Kidney, Deirdre Kidney and Laoise Sareen sharing the final 20 per cent of the business.
The directors’ note with the accounts said that trading for the year was satisfactory.
The group recorded a post tax profit of €4.47 million after incurring a corporation tax charge of €712,069.
Numbers employed increased by one to 248 as staff costs increased marginally from €8.41 million to €8.46 million.
Directors’ pay decreased from €1.02 million to €816,663.
