Rose of Tralee festival may fold
The future of the internationally renowned Rose of Tralee Festival was in grave doubt tonight after organisers admitted they needed to raise €250,000 by the weekend to keep it afloat.
Siobhán Hanley, the event’s Chief Executive, said she had received no guarantees of financial support, while a Government spokesman said no tourism funds were available to clear the event’s debts.
He said almost €550,000 had been allocated to the festival since December 2001.
The annual event, which features girls of Irish ancestry from around the world competing for the festival crown, regularly tops the ratings when televised live on RTÉ.
The contest, which is in its 46th year, costs around €1m euro to stage and attracts over 200,000 visitor,s who spend an estimated €25m in the Co Kerry town.
The winner of last year’s competition was homegrown Dublin Rose, Orla Tobin, but previous victors have hailed from countries across the world including the US, Australia and Italy.
Ms Hanley said that unless the money could be raised by the weekend, she would have to inform the festival’s directors that attempts to save the company have failed.
The festival directors would then have to decide whether or not to put the company into liquidation, she added.
Organisers have been trying to put a rescue package together to save the debt-ridden company over the last three months.
Ms Hanley said verbal agreements had been secured from a majority of the company’s creditors to settle for payments amounting to a third of the company’s debts, which total €900,000.
But she said the success of the rescue package was dependent on raising the necessary finance to repay the remaining debts.
“We have been exploring every avenue, we have talked to all the key interested parties,” she said.
“We have people who are interested and what we want is to make sure that the festival is retained as an asset for the town of Tralee.”
Ms Hanley said it was hoped five local organisations would commit to contribute €50,000 each to pay off the debts.
She said the Mayor of Tralee met with the five bodies, Tralee Town Council, Shannon Development, Tralee & Kerry Vintners, Tralee Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Holiday Tralee earlier this week, but no financial commitments were made at the meeting.
“The result of the meeting that the mayor convened on Tuesday was that they didn’t have the money at that particular time,” she said.
Ms Hanley said the festival had received pledges of financial support from sources outside Tralee but they would only invest if the company was debt-free and if organisations in the town were also to come on board.
But she insisted she remained optimistic.
“Other business people in the town feel that it cannot be lost for the town of Tralee,” she added.
