Accumulated profits at the firm that operates the online death notice rip.ie website last year surged to €1.695m.
The sharp increase in accumulated profits at the Co Louth based Gradam Communications Ltd, which operates rip.ie, follows the company recording post tax profits of €264,912 for the 12 months to the end of December 2023.
The strong profits for 2023 followed modest post tax profits of €1,625 for 2022.
The post tax profits for the 12 months of last year resulted in accumulated profits rising from €1.43m to €1.69m.
Underlining a buoyant year for the business, the firm’s cash funds during 2023 increased from €1.22m to €1.52m.
Apart from 2022, the rip.ie firm has recorded strong profits in recent years as traffic to the death notice website has continued to increase
Jay Coleman and his sister Dympna Coleman operate the business and own the company on a 50/50 basis. Neither come from a tech background – one worked in an office and the other on a farm – but gave up their day jobs to pursue the idea.
The directors are listed as Jay Coleman and Pauline Coleman and the business last year increased its profits even as the aggregate pay package to directors increased almost three fold from €59,759 to €160,000.
The 2023 pay to directors was made up of €100,000 in pension payments and €60,000 in remuneration.
Jay and Dympna 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 four.
The accounts are abridged and don’t provide a revenue figure for the year. The profit for last year takes account of non-cash depreciation costs of €40,373. The book value of the company's property, plant and equipment totalled €129,198.
Such is the dominance of rip.ie for online death notices here, the Central Statistics Office (CSO) 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
