Staff at the Homebase store at Athboy Road in Navan are waiting to see what their employment status will be following the announcement that the store, along with others at Letterkenny and Waterford, is being bought by British hardware chain B&Q. The company said on Tuesday that it had purchased the three stores in a deal worth €3.7 million. It already has eight stores in the Republic and others in Northern Ireland, including Belfast.

A closing down sale has been going on at the Navan store since last month following the appointment by the High Court of a provisional liquidator to the company owning the Homebase retail chain in the Republic. It is expected that the purchase of the three stores by B&Q will be completed in the first quarter of the year.

The first of the stores is expected to be taken over in the first half of the year and all sites are expected to be handed over throughout 2025. Following the acquisition B&Q said it will carry out consultations with the employees and that they will then become employees of B&Q.

One employees at the Navan Homebase store told Meath Live that they hadn’t as yet heard anything about the company’s plans in relation to future employment but hoped that they would be subsumed into the B&Q staff. B&Q has over 300 stores in the UK and Ireland.