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THE OWNER OF Blacktie, Niall O’Farrell, has informed staff at its 11 premises that a liquidator will be appointed to the company on Friday 1 February.
The shops are set to continue trading as normal until then, with the company hopeful that a buyer for the group will be secured once a liquidator is in place.
The statement from the company said:
The decision was taken in consultation with the company’s bankers due to a combination of market and economic factors including a decline in the formal wear rental market, increased lower cost retailers from the high street, higher utility and branch operating costs and unaffordable high levels of rates.
The business will continue to trade as usual, working to honour its commitments to customers and employees, with a view to securing a buyer for the business.
Niall O’Farrell added: “I deeply regret having to make this decision,” adding that he had spent the majority of his career “establishing and developing Blacktie, and have done all I could to bolster its prospects.”
He went on to say:
I have not drawn a salary from the business for the past four years, and even invested substantial personal resources. I would like to pay tribute to Blacktie’s employees for their hard work, dedication and loyalty, and will ensure I am available to each and every one of them to answer personally any queries that they may have.
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Minister Quinn says he does not want to unduly interfere with the running of schools and proceeds to do so. Watch for the not so well hidden agenda to emerge – limiting the schools ability to maintain its own ethos. Roll on a spiritless, soulless, bland education-by-numbers system which will be more about grading our youth than educating them. The Minister is doing a great job of picking the worst bits of other countries education systems and destroying our best bits. The man is doing untold damage which will take decades to fix.
As opposed to the system we have now which culminates in a test which encourages rote learning with no understanding of the material.
Having recently gone through the process of applying for a place in secondary school for my daughter I have to agree with Quinn. €100 to just apply, if you turn down the place you lose the deposit, if you take the place it goes towards your €250 annual Voluntary contribution. Preference given to past pupils, past parents, then a then b. Having moved here when my daughter was 2 I have no advantages. Also, one load if schools closed admissions in November and the other half only started in January. So the €100 really became a deciding point.
Irish primary schools spend 10% of their time teaching children religion, double the European average, while only 4% teaching science, half the European average. Our school system is overly concerned with indoctrinating children into religion and not concerned enough with actually educating them. The catholic ethos in schools is one of the very worst things about our education system.
I think all children should be entitled to go a school in their own area. Disgraceful if they have to leave their community to go to school.
I agree to a point but what about those who want to send their kid to a school not in their immediate local? Maybe the schools in the area are not deemed to be good enough in the eyes of the parent (or in reality) and so they would like an equal opportunity to go to a school they they feel is good enough and are willing to travel to? Maybe a school in a different location has a more desirable ethos for the parents to send there kid to and nothing like it exists near them? What if all the schools in an area are religious and the parent does not want that for their kid? Or if the only school in the area is non-denominational and again the parents dont want that for their kid?
The fairest way IMO is first come first served in reality. There should be flexibility in the system to deal with those who move into new areas if possible but it would be a bit unfair for a child to be denied a place in a school they applied for 12 years in advance so as to accomidate for a child whos family moved into the area a year before the child was to start……..Geography is not everything…….
Agree SPP but it cut both ways – schools should have to accept children from their local area, instead of encouraging children who score high on academic tests to travel long distances.
There’s also a very practical issue about families being able to have their children in the same schools, especially for primary school – if this is not considered a factor, then a family could easily end up collecting children from three schools in a city area every afternoon.
Yep schools should very much have to accept those from the local area, but not to displace someone who applied to go to the school before them who is not. That is unfair IMO. I think all kids should be treated equally irrespective of where they are from.
Public schools should very much not be allowed or even be able to discriminate based on academic scoring. Does this actually go on?
As for siblings of those who are already attending the school, this would be one of the only if not the only priority category I would have, as to have kids going to different schools is not fair on families. But after that it really should be 1st come 1st served. This would seem the only logical fair way to me.
so there’s a chance I might have to send my kids to different schools in the interest of making things “fairer”
like all your Bullshit ministers, why not start at the top with this “transparency & fairness” and we can move on from there?
Perhaps you should wait to see the draft legislation before jumping to conclusions.
If you don’t like it then send them to a private school?
So.
The little security I thought I had, my child going to the local CBS that I went to, is gone.
For that school, I have sat on committees, given mock interviews to LC students, raised funds and entertained transition year work experience students, and now Quinn wants to make it a lottery.
Gotta love this country.
I have lost all faith in Rory Quinn,he let the young students of Ireland down badly.Its hard to believe he is a Labour minister.
I wish him well in the venture but I believe he will come up against a brick wall when it comes to the PTAs and principals, both of whom are concerned with results, and certain senior teachers who have led sheltered lifestyles for many years now by only having Higher Level groups. It will be very hard to tackle the system and prejudice from within. Schools will continue to segregate the doctors from the perceived dunces, the unemployed/unemployable from the businessmen as certain schools strive to attract a particular clientele.
The second potential problem is what is he aiming for – a British style system of working to the average or a system that makes teachers, pupils and students aim higher than average? Though the latter is desirable, even deserved considering the amount of tax paid over the past thirty years, I fear the former will win out leaving our children with the unenviable task of competing with children from other countries that have invested in education, research and development.
As much I love to slate Labour and highlight there broken promises.
Evidence would seem to suggest that assigning school places by a lottery system does not significantly impact outcomes.
Labour ran on a campaign of “we ll protect low and middle income workers from Fine Gael / Frankfurt/ Austerity. The labour leadership then embraced Fine Gael s policies with relish and are getting wiped out as a result. They may not care as they have secured the ministerial pensions but Gilmore Rabbitt Howlin and Quinn have sold out Labour supporters. The new backbench TDs will pay with their seats at the next election. Roisin Shorthall and Colm Keavney are the only ones that showed principle.
David, I don’t think you can infer too much about Ireland from one study of Chicago public schools. The situation there is possibly rather different: if schools are much the same then sure a lottery won’t make much difference. There is a large body of peer reviewed evidence that school quality matters. But it tends not to hinge on class size or whether a school is private: teacher quality matters.
Don’t forget McNulty and Tommy Broughan in the Labour TDs who voted against the whip,
Bit rich coming from a minister who sends his own children to private school
The best way they have to ensure that children from disadvantaged backgrounds never have the chance to enrol in their schools
Will he tackle this issue
You and most know the obvious answer to that one.
Schools should be “more structured, fair and transparent” ?
How about leading by example and let our politicians and their departments do similar first in leading us?
Off topic, Biggins.
No, if they want to do something – they should be leading by example.
It would be a good lesson for others to follow and for all to see.
In other words no longer “Do as we say – not as we do!”
Great game of politics there minister.
He knew well that there would be some kind of cold reaction from yesterday and had this nicely lined up to switch direction.
Nicely filled with buzz too – but not much in substance. Using the word “fair” doesn’t just magically make it fair.
The cynic in me asks how it will be ‘policed’. Too easy for principals to lie and BoMs to go along with them.
Sure isn’t that what you tend to do in these situations.
(quote taken from Labour handbook)
A focus on teacher quality is required in all schools. A focus too on the quality and objectives of the curriculum.
The one thing that I would have loved to have seen implemented way back when would have been to encourage asylum seekers to be allowed to work in collaboration with our teachers teach something about their culture and allow them provide cultural classes whether it be in basic Marathi, Albanian or Gikuyu as part of giving back to society instead of being told to wait around for one year waiting and receiving 19 euros a week. In return, we could have and should have allowed some recognition in the form of university credit, reduction in citizenship waiting time or additional payment for those classes.
Though it may seem pointless or useless for many, it allows our young the chance to go work there and find opportunities if there are none present here, find love and happiness, give them another view on life, discovery of a new craft, a way of getting around a certain problem or a practical application of something theoretical that had been previously considered useless.
Oh yeah. Terrific idea. Let’s learn about those “cultures” instead of teaching the subjects they need to progress in life. Sweet Jesus. I give up.
Every thing in life is connected and relevant. Just because we run around learning everything off by heart does not mean we understand what it is we are doing. Sometimes by getting other ideas and perspectives, we can achieve the impossible. Different understandings of time compared to the standard European line – it could be a flow or it could be distance. By allowing our children the chance to understand such concepts along with the standard (besides giving it when they are 18 and it is TOO late), the children can form their own ideas.
Yet Eamonn, perhaps you are right. Indeed, it’s a great thing to have people that cannot analyse, think independently or wish to broaden their minds because they will always be suckered into doing something that the elite want and expect (housing crisis, housing boom, housing bust or easy money, debt crisis, taxation, more taxation and punitive taxation) while those that have the ability or wits to work around the system get on better.
John. Seriously my friend??
@john pearse
What are you on ??
Why should asylum seekers be treated with some kind of special status? They are here essentially guests and should be happy they have been accepted in here.
No one asked them to come here and they should be making an extra effort to learn about Iteland rather than the other way round.
If they are in direct procision they should consider themselves very lucky to be allowed to be in local mainstream education in the forst place, should they not ?
Certain credit should be given when credit is due. I am not saying that we should line up all immigrants and tell them to teach. However, it is a lot better to have someone contributing something useful to our “knowledge” economy than just taking from it.
Many, not all, are making the effort to integrate into Irish society but as it stands, asylum seekers are treated as pariahs. They live on the outskirts of most small towns around the country or in some hotel in the centre of Salthill where no Irish would dare go. There is no integration. We see only the very bad and so other asylum seekers are often tarred as being one and the same.
Why should they be considered lucky to be allowed into mainstream education? Are you saying that education is a privilege? I am not denying that the Irish grinds system is a privilege. However, if you are stating that we should call for education as a privilege, you are denying people the basic right to an education.
Just one more point. Our youth unemployment rate stands at 30%. It would be a lot more but for other English-speaking countries. However, should the countries that are hosting our children enter into a recession or depression, what will our children do? Sit in New Zealand and Canada waiting for a job? Those that are ILLEGAL in the US are surviving day to day in the shadows.
IF we are producing kids with a good skills set, i.e. the ability to speak a foreign language outside of a European language (Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Tagalog, Vietnamese) or have a deeper knowledge of maths and science beyond the curriculum, surely they stand a better chance of working legally and at a higher management and specialist level and with greater potential than withering away their youth on the dole in Ireland or jockeying for power Ballyfeckall with the Gombeen Kid.
I’m what most would classify as a lay “Christian” identifying more with Protestantism. My wife is Catholic. While I think a certain unbiased ecumenical teaching of the fundamentals and history of Christianity is OK I do not want my kids brainwashed into Catholicism nor do I think it is appropriate that they have to be baptized into one faith to attend State schools – that should be secular anyway. Religion should not be a factor in any admission to State schools. Maybe slightly off topic but….
Quinn is a morally repugnant individual.
Wow, the journal really has an itchy trigger finger these days when it comes to deleteing comments. Or is the decision left to the small minority of easily offended people to decide which comments everyone is allowed to view?
Bring in Michelle Rhee to fix this whole Education System.
I think we have the expertise right here in Ireland already. We just haven’t ever had a minister and a system that has allowed creative and analytic thinkers to make the impact.
Fair enough … So schooling can be open to all kinds of students from reglious and non-reglious backgrounds
Interesting. When i teach my science classes, i can never do that experiement to part a bowel of water in the middle, nor can i turn water into wine.
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