The Irish Bank Officials' Association has condemned proposals by Bank of Ireland to cut staff numbers in its traditional core activities by around 700. The cuts will be at head office and branch level and are likely to affect mainly older staff.

It will not affect the overall expansion in employment, but growth has tended to be in electronic banking services. On Tuesday it announced a joint venture on credit card processing with the US-based Nova Corporation that will generate up to 500 jobs.

Today the bank is expected to announce record profits and the IBOA general secretary, Mr Ciaran Ryan, said it was "economic nonsense" for these "to result in record job cuts. Why should staff work to generate big profits and then find their jobs are gone?" He was speaking after meeting senior management yesterday.

He said it was unclear at this stage how many redundancies or relocations by staff would be required but there was "no reason for this plan other than to please, or appease market analysts".

The "key stakeholders, staff and customers, are not being accommodated and the plan is contrary to the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness."

Mr Ryan said the union would meet management again on May 19th to discuss the proposals in more detail. After that, it would consult members on how to respond to the proposals.

But Mr Ryan said the company had already been told that its proposals were "commercially and economically wrong.

The bank declined to comment on the proposals ahead of today's report. But it did not dispute the figure of 700 possible job losses.