On ‘CRO Meddlers’

Not allowed call ourselves ME HOLE

Publicity & Coverage

We did the right thing and applied to the Companies Registration Office to set up this business as Simple Assembly Me Hole.  But our application was turned down on the grounds that the ‘me hole’ bit may be offensive.

Believe me – I’ve been around the houses on this, between supervisors, heads of department, information officers. On Monday of this week I was advised to go straight to the top and put my request in writing to the Head of the CRO himself.  I duly did as I was told and spent the rest of this week trying to follow up.  At 4.50pm today, the week ended with a reply from himself – the self appointed High Priest of Good Taste:

As you know one of the criteria for determining whether a business name is
undesirable is that it could cause offence. This is obviously a subjective
judgment but I have considered the decision already made and decided that
it should stand.

In accordence with Section 14 of the Business Names Act, 1963 it is open to
you to appeal the decision to the High Court.

Does he not realise that start-ups like ourselves don’t have the kind of funds it takes to ‘take it to the High Court’?  We are too busy saving marriages and putting under-employed carpenters back to work.

I’m extremely disappointed about this.  Especially given that the following business names have already been approved by his same office:

How can one man in the civil service get to say what I call my business?  When national media has already covered this…it’s been all over the place and people love our name.  It brings a smile to their faces.

How can half the population be wrong and the self appointed High Priest of Taste get to say what’s what?

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Meddling Companies Registration Office

Tell your Nightmare

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the Companies Registration Office is a repository of information; we tell them what we’re calling our business and they do their thing and make sure that there’s a record of it in the State.

So why are they taking it upon themselves to dictate to me what I can call my business?

I have tried to register the name Simple Assembly Me Hole as a business, but someone in there with far too much time on their hands keeps vetoing my decision on what I want to call my business. Who do they think they are – my grandmother?

I will be taking this matter up with the Assistant Registrar on Tuesday:

  • It’s not as if any of the words are offensive – like feck or hoor, or worse!
  • I’ve enjoyed a week of successful media coverage – including the Ray Darcy show after which not one member of the public complained or chose to be annoyed.  Indeed The Irish Times named us as their favourite flatpack assembly company because of our name.  See for yourself here.
  • In these recessionary times, you’d expect that the CRO, as an office of the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment would do everything in its power to support the creation of jobs and not waste this entrepreneur’s time with petty-minded bureaucracy.

In the meantime, I thought I’d just share this information here in the hope that any Sunday Business Post readers who may have encountered this problem before might know a solution? If so, please comment below.

PS – welcome oh Sunday Business Post readers… surely you’ve more things to be doing than assembling flatpack furniture? Indeed. That’s why you’re here? Allow me to direct you.