The Healy-Raes of Kerry and their multimillion-euro business empire

Kerry TDs Michael and Danny Healy-Rae are very wealthy businessmen as well as successful politicians; Michael owns a substantial property portfolio, his brother Danny a profitable plant hire business.

Both are millionaires who have business dealings with the State and employ family members as parliamentary assistants and secretaries in Leinster House. Two of Danny Healy-Rae’s children, Maura and Johnny, and one of Michael Healy-Rae’s children, Jackie jnr, are Independent councillors on Kerry County Council, which in turn has business dealings with Healy-Rae family companies. All of the firms are based in the village of Kilgarvan, Co Kerry, a 10-minute drive from Kenmare and the centre of the family’s interests.

Danny Healy-Rae’s company, Healy-Rae Plant Hire Ltd, incorporated in 1999, reported an after-tax profit of €1.12 million in 2022, up from €1 million the previous year. The company paid no dividend, according to its latest abridged, unaudited accounts and finished the year with accumulated profits of €4.7 million. It had no employees other than the directors, Healy-Rae and his son, Johnny, who received directors’ emoluments of €38,000 between them.

The company’s largest creditor at year’s end were “group undertakings” owed €915,099. The undertakings are not identified. Bank and lease debt was substantially less than this amount.

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According to Healy-Rae’s most recent declaration of interests to the Dáil, the company’s clients include Kerry County Council and Irish Water. According to Johnny Healy Rae’s latest declaration of interests to Kerry County Council, the company also does work for Cork County Council.

The company has an interest in a quarry at Rossacroo, Kilgarvan, according to its accounts, and owns a subsidiary, Sunville Construction Ltd, which produced an after-tax profit of €109,703 in 2022. The 2021 accounts for Sunville show it made an after-tax profit of €198,000 that year and owed €1.85 million to unidentified group undertakings. It employed an average of 27 people and paid directors’ remuneration of €75,733 to its two directors, Danny and Johnny.

[ The life, times and power base of the Healy-Raes – decades of influence in Independent politics ]

As well as being a TD and plant hire operator, Danny Healy-Rae describes himself in his Dáil declaration of interests as a publican (he has a pub in Kilgarvan), farmer and operator of a bus hire business (which does business with Bus Éireann). The declaration lists three plots of land totalling 37 hectares (91 acres), which Land Registry records indicate have no mortgages.

Michael Healy-Rae describes himself in his 2022 Dáil declaration as a public representative, postmaster, farmer, shop-owner and operator of a plant hire business. His declaration of property interests lists 24 properties, an increase on the 18 he declared in 2017. Most of the properties are houses and apartments that are rented out.

Included in the recent additions to his property portfolio is Rosemont guest house in Oakpark, Tralee, which houses refugees from Ukraine. The State paid €658,770 for the use of the guest house in the year to the end of September last. Land Registry filings indicate that Healy-Rae bought the property in 2020, with a mortgage from AIB.

Most of the properties listed in Healy-Rae’s declaration of interests are houses or apartments in Kilgarvan or the wider Co Kerry area. He also declared 40 hectares (100 acres) of land in Kilgarvan used for farming and forestry. Searches in the Land Registry show recent property purchases for which no mortgage was registered. The properties include a small house at the back of his petrol station in Kilgarvan, which was bought for €85,000 in December 2021, according to the Residential Property Price register.

One of his companies, Black Cap & Co Ltd, was incorporated in 2017 and recorded a loss of almost €100,000 in the year to the end of April 2022, according to its latest abridged, unaudited accounts. The directors, Healy-Rae and his wife, Eileen Healy-Rae, were paid directors’ emoluments of €47,000. The company, which is involved in the retail sale of petrol and groceries, paid €12,000 in rent to Michael Healy-Rae, who owns the company’s premises in Kilgarvan. According to Healy-Rae’s declaration of interests to the Dáil, the company was involved in the supply of diesel to Kerry County Council.

Healy-Rae is also the owner of ML Healy Rae Properties Ltd, a property maintenance company incorporated in December 2020 that produced an after-tax profit of €31,729 in 2022. The company has contractual arrangements with the council in relation to the rental accommodation and housing assistance payment schemes, according to Healy-Rae’s Dáil declaration.

Another of his companies, Roughty Properties Ltd, incorporated in May of last year, is involved in the supply of accommodation to the Department of Integration, which provides accommodation to people who have fled the war in Ukraine. The directors of the company are Michael Healy-Rae and his son Kevin. It has yet to file financial returns.

[ Miriam Lord writes in 2019: Healy-Raes show the true meaning of party politics ]

Michael, Eileen, Kevin and another son, Ian Healy-Rae, are all directors of Roughty Plant Hire Ltd, which made an after-tax profit of €90,333 in the year to the end of April 2022, according to its latest abridged, unaudited accounts. The company, which paid its directors €87,582 during the year, had accumulated profits of €692,609 at the end of the year. During the year it received Government grants of €101,602, understood to be Covid support payments.

Jackie Healy-Rae, a parliamentary assistant to his father, is a director and 50 per cent owner of EJ Building & Consultancy Ltd. It was incorporated last year and has yet to file accounts. He is a director and owner of Rockefeller Ltd, which was incorporated in 2021 and is involved in retail sales.

His brother Kevin Healy-Rae is the sole director of Sandymount Ventures Ltd of Sandymount, Kilgarvan, which is owned by his mother Eileen. The company was incorporated last year, is principally involved in “artistic creation” and has yet to file a financial return, according to Companies Registration Office records.

Johnny Healy-Rae is a director and owner of Healy-Rae Construction and Building Services Ltd, in the returns for which he describes himself as a farmer. His father is not connected with the building company.

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