Bank Of Ireland Announces 2,000 Job Cuts

by Jason Gorringe, Tax-News.com, London

24 March 2005

In a stock exchange announcement yesterday, Chief Executive Brian Goggin of the Bank of Ireland said it would cut 12% of its 17,000 labour force over the next four years to save about Euros 120m annually.

Goggin said the bank would close 10 of its 291 branches in the Republic of Ireland, while amalgamating 22 call centres into just four units. He hoped that the cuts could be achieved by voluntary redundancies, but was prepared to face strikes if necessary.

The bank said that its full-year 2004 results, to be released May 12, would show a 5% gain in pretax profit, in line with analysts' expectations. The bank said it was providing for redundancy costs of Euros 210m over the four years.

Larry Broderick, General Secretary of the Irish Bank Officials Association, a union that represents about 7,000 of Bank of Ireland's 12,000 employees, said: "This is corporate greed at its most vulgar."

The bank said that job cuts would fall most heavily in Ireland, and would have less effect on its UK operations, which include subsidiary Bristol & West, which the bank has said it is prepared to sell.

The bank said it also was open to takeover offers for its Bristol & West PLC subsidiary. The bank, based in Bristol, western England, operates 97 branches and employs 1,200 in Britain. Bank of Ireland shares rose slightly after the announcement was made.

Opposition Labour party finance spokeswoman, Joan Burton, said it was "very disappointing" to hear the bank planned such extensive job cuts, saying that banks benefited from an "extraordinarily favourable tax regime".

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