Media bias

PAUL CULLEN and SIMON CARSWELL

THE GOVERNMENT’S employment strategy has come under strong Opposition attack following the announcement yesterday of over 1,100 job losses across Ireland.

Just days before Ministers meet to draw up plans for a jobs initiative, the precarious state of existing employment was highlighted by layoffs announced by Ulster Bank and Diageo.

Trade unions and senior management at Ulster Bank are to hold talks today after the lender announced plans to cut 950 jobs. Some 600 staff in the Republic will lose their jobs by the end of the year, while the balance of the redundancies are in Northern Ireland.

Unions are expected to seek the same redundancy package agreed under a 2009 deal, which saw workers receive an average of seven weeks’ pay per year of service on top of two weeks’ statutory pay.

A black day on the jobs front also saw Diageo announce plans to close the country’s oldest operating brewery in Kilkenny as part of a restructuring plan that will also result in the closure of its brewery in Dundalk with a total loss of 99 jobs.

Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce president John Purcell said it was “a sad day” for the city and closure of the 300-year-old St Francis Abbey Brewery would mark “the end of an era”. Further job losses were confirmed yesterday in Dublin where one of the capital’s best known hostels, Isaac’s, near Busáras, has been put into liquidation. The hostel employed 71 people in 2010 and twice that a year earlier.

In Waterford, more than 30 jobs are to go at Honeywell Measurex as the company, which makes parts for the computer industry, restructures its operations. It is understood that work currently being done in Waterford is moving to Bulgaria, although about 30 jobs will remain at the Waterford plant.

On a more positive note, Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton is expected to announce the creation of up to 200 jobs through the expansion of an existing business when he visits Waterford this morning. News of the new employment will be welcomed across the southeast, which has suffered serious job blows in recent years.

Sinn Féin’s jobs spokesman, Peadar Toibin, warned the Ulster Bank redundancies could be the first of potentially thousands of jobs losses within the banking industry.

“After nearly a year in office, redundancies, unemployment and emigration have become the constant theme of this Fine Gael and Labour administration. The desperate news of significant job losses in Ulster Bank underlines the failure of Government policy.”

Emigration, the number of unemployed and the length of time people are unemployed had all increased under the current Government, he said. “The bailout, which was meant to stabilise the economy and the banking industry and to get credit flowing to the local economy, has clearly failed.”

Fianna Fáil’s deputy leader Éamon Ó Cuív expressed particular concern for retail sector workers in Ulster Bank, such as cashiers, who might not have sought-after IT skills. “The whole question of retraining and upskilling becomes absolutely crucial to their job prospects,” he said.

The redundancies are to be spread over two years but the bank will seek to implement most of the cuts in the second half of this year. Compulsory redundancies have not been ruled out as this depends on the take-up among staff.

Mr Bruton hailed Diageo’s decision to invest €153 million in consolidating brewing operation at St James’s Gate in Dublin as a “major vote of confidence” in the Irish economy.

However, he was accused by a Green Party councillor in Kilkenny, Malcolm Noonan, of effectively welcoming job losses brought about by a multinational’s loyalty to its shareholders over its workers and brewing heritage in Kilkenny and Dundalk.