Press Release

An open letter to Vita Cortex owner Jack Ronan

Date Released: 27 January 2012

With 32 Vita Cortex workers in the seventh week of a sit-in at the former foam manufacturing plant on the Kinsale Road in Cork, 96 FM Radio DJ PJ Coogan sent an open letter to the company’s owner, Jack Ronan, calling on him to “pay his debts” and honour his former employees agreed redundancy terms.

Dear Jack,

You don't know me, but then, how could you when you won't answer your phone? Maybe, however, you'll read this note, and I thank you in advance for doing so.

Jack, I was lucky to learn how to cover industrial relations from two of the best IR reporters in the business, Peter Cluskey and John Murray. They both worked with me in 96FM many years ago, before moving on to RTE, and beyond. Peter and John both have an intricate knowledge of how things like the Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court work. I was a mere 'cub' reporter when I worked with them in the late '80s and early '90s, but they gave me a good grounding in how the “machinery of the State” as it's so often called, actually works. It was through John Murray that I first came into contact with Anne Egar. 

Anne is, by anyone's description, a tough cookie. Some people like her, some dion't, but we've always gotten on well.

I have never, however, seen Anne Egar, or indeed any union official, as furious as I saw her last weekend. She was, Jack, as the saying goes, 'fit to be tied' over your latest move. She explained it to me, and answered my numerous questions to try to simplify its complexity. As she did, Jack, I, too, became very, very angry. You are a multi millionaire, and yet you have just pulled  one of the most despicable strokes on a group of very ordinary workers that I've ever heard.

I thought I had seen every trick in the book. As I said, I was taught the workings of Industrial Relations by two hardened hacks who had pretty much seen it all. Yet, your decision to take off the table at the last minute, a deal with NAMA to release cash for your workers, so that you can get a better personal outcome for yourself, simply takes the shaggin' biscuit.

The 32 workers out on Kinsale Road could have been home with their families now, as I write, but instead, they are still out there in that deserted husk of a place, holding out for the money that you quite rightly owe them, for their years of service. 

I was with them on Monday, Jack. I pop in every few days, usually to update the story, but also to spend a little bit of time with them, even if it's only half an hour. As I write, they are in the 40^th day of their sit-in. They have lashings of food, a telly, a radio, and are regularly fed hot meals by the good businesspeople of Cork. The canteen is festooned with cards, letters, gifts and messages from all over the country. Children have drawn little posters and sent them in. They have nearly 6,000 followers on Facebook and hundreds more on Twitter, from all over the world.

Your actions at the eleventh hour last week, Mr. Ronan, have left a sour and bitter taste in the mouths of every single supporter of these decent, honest people, who gave decades of dedicated service. However, they won't be moving. I've no doubt you know Seanie Kelleher? Well, Jack, Seanie said to me on Monday: “We have a mission now. Our mission is to get our money...”

Jack, in the name of all that's decent, would you not just get the bloody finger out, pay your debts, and stop this cruel, calculated and downright nasty little game? You know you have the money, or at least, you know you can get it. You should also know, that until you pay it over, Seanie, Jimmy Power, Cal O'Leary, Amy Collins and the others, will not move. You'll have to bulldoze them out of it.

But then, maybe you'd consider doing that first, rather than pay.

Shame on you, Sir. Shame on you

Regards...

PJ Coogan