Losses at Grafton College firm increased by €400,000 last year

Amount language school owed in directors’ loans rose from €153,586 to €427,419 in 2017

Exterior of the building in which Grafton College is based in Portobello, Dublin, on Monday Photograph: Nick Bradshaw
Exterior of the building in which Grafton College is based in Portobello, Dublin, on Monday Photograph: Nick Bradshaw

The company that operates Grafton College in Dublin recorded a loss of €507,464 last year, having lost €99,651 in 2016, according to its accounts.

The company is owned by a housewife in London who shares an address there with one of its directors, according to Irish and UK company records.

Uzma Saeed (42), of Southall, London, is listed as the sole shareholder of Grafton College of Management Sciences, a company incorporated in Ireland in 2003.

A return filed in September showed the directors were Saeed Rehman (47), a British national with an address in Lucan, Co Dublin; Nicholas Christopher Kelly (40), a college manager with an address in Upper Dargle Road, Bray, Co Wicklow; and Ms Saeed, also a British national.

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The latest accounts for the company indicate that the directors advanced a large amount of money to the firm last year, with the amount it owed in directors’ loans rising to €427,419 from €153,586 at the end of 2016.

‘Group undertakings’

An amount owed to the company by unidentified “group undertakings” was €481,952 at the end of last year, the same figure as at the end of 2016.

The company employed an average of 34 people during 2017, up from 24 the previous year. Salaries and other employment costs went up to €777,574 from a total of €570,216 during the previous year. Directors’ remuneration was €60,000.

Mr Rehman is also a director of a company incorporated in London called Grafton College of Management Sciences, and is a former shareholder of that company.

His address as listed in Companies House in the UK is the London address of Ms Saeed. The UK company appears to be dormant.

Colm Keena

Colm Keena

Colm Keena is an Irish Times journalist. He was previously legal-affairs correspondent and public-affairs correspondent