“There is a huge human cost to the announcement today, and people are in a state of total shock” – Unite
Bank of Scotland Ireland has announced it is to close its Halifax network in Ireland with loss of around 750 jobs.
The bank, which employs around 1,600 people nationally, said that following a strategic review it will close down its retail network of 44 branch locations, one of which is located on Shannon Street in Limerick City.
“It is intended that Halifax in the Republic of Ireland will close on a phased basis, from the end of May 2010,” the bank said in a statement to customers on its website Tuesday.
“As part of this review, the Bank has announced its intention to withdraw from Retail and Intermediary banking, which includes the Halifax retail bank network in the Republic of Ireland and the Bank of Scotland (Ireland) Asset Finance and Home loans businesses,” the statement read.
Officials announced the decision to bank staff around the country Tuesday afternoon.
Of the 750 jobs to be lost, 400 will go from national branch closures while 350 will go from customer service and other support centres across the nation. The Bank’s Commercial Banking and Corporate Banking operations remain unaffected by the move.
Although terms of redundancy have yet to be agreed or announced, the banks Ireland Chief Executive Joe Higgins told RTE the number of job losses “could be slightly less if there is take up of a voluntary redundancy scheme for workers not affected by today’s decision.”
Workers union Unite said they will not give up on saving the jobs,
“It is a crazy, wrong headed decision which is likely born of a London boardroom that has no sense of the strong future which the bank can have. We will not give up on these jobs, they are too important for the country as a whole for the government to allow them slide away.”
The bank will now begin writing to its customers to set out how the changes will affect them.
Bank of Scotland Ireland moved into Limerick in early 2006 before the Shannon street branch was re-branded as Halifax later that year.
