Profits at the company that operates the online death notice RIP.ie website last year decreased by 37% to €130,615.
Accounts filed by the Co Louth based Gradam Communications Ltd show that the post tax profits of €130,615 follow post tax profits of €208,492 in 2020 and profits of €220,225 for 2019.
The main factor behind the decrease in profits last year was the directors paying €100,000 in directors' pension contributions for 2021. This followed a zero payout under that heading in 2020.
The consistently strong profits of recent years resulted in the business having accumulated profits of €1.42m at the end of December last.
The company's cash funds increased from €1.29m to €1.36m at the end of last year.
Last year, the business benefited from a 4% increase in the number of deaths across Ireland.
Figures from the Central Statistics Office show that there were 33,055 deaths in Ireland in 2021- an increase of 1,290 on the 31,765 deaths recorded in 2020.
Jay Coleman and his sister Dympna Coleman operate the business.
The Colemans set up RIP.ie in 2005 and today it has more than 250,000 visitors each day with more than 50 million page views each month.
The numbers employed by the business last year remained at five.
The directors' pension contributions of €100,000 resulted in overall pay to directors more than doubling from €77,156 to €161,000.
The company has been contesting a High Court action taken by a Galway businessman who is claiming a 20% shareholding in the business.
In a note attached to the accounts, it states that the company is a party to litigation, the outcome of which is uncertain and as such it is not possible to estimate any outstanding impact.
"Notwithstanding this, the directors are confident of a positive outcome in the litigation," the note adds.
The accounts are abridged and do not provide a revenue figure for the year.
Such is the dominance of RIP.ie for online death notices here, the Central Statistics Office has used statistics on an experimental basis from the website as the primary tool in publishing more timely mortality statistics during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In a report, the CSO undertook an analysis of death notices published on RIP.ie and found a strong correlation between those notices which are generally posted within three days of a death, and official mortality statistics, once the notices had been analysed and "cleaned" to take account of dual postings.
Reporting by Gordon Deegan
