Lenihan 'should consider inclusion in third force'

UNION POSITION:THE TRADE union Unite intends to press Minister for Finance Brian Lenihan to consider the inclusion of Bank of Scotland (Ireland) (BoSI) in the so-called third banking force to save the 750 staff who face losing their jobs.

Unite regional officer Brian Gallagher said that the union would be pressing the Departments of the Taoiseach and Finance to consider including BoSI in the third force created by merging Irish Nationwide and EBS building societies, and Irish Life Permanent’s banking division, Permanent TSB.

The union rejected the bank’s plans to close down its retail and intermediary businesses and lay off the 750 staff, saying that it was “totally unnecessary” and “we are going to fight tooth and nail”.

Unite would not discuss redundancy terms with BoSI, he said.

Speaking outside the bank’s St Stephen’s Green head office in Dublin, he said the union had commissioned a report by consultants FGS which showed that the third banking force, including BoSI, could rival AIB and Bank of Ireland and secure the jobs.

“We are not prepared to accept that the issue of the third banking force has failed,” he said.

Bernard Daly, a secretary of Unite and employee of the bank for more than 30 years, said: “There is a huge human cost to the announcement and people are in a state of total shock.”

He accused UK bank Lloyds, BoSI’s owner and itself 43 per cent owned by the British government, of “panicking” and not fully considering the merits of the third force.

BoSI had “a unique experience” of lending to the small and medium-sized enterprises, he said, as it had acquired former State-owned bank ICC.

“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.”

Sandra Rothwell, an employee of almost 30 years, said staff were “devastated by the news”. There were also many married couples working at BoSI, she said.

Mr Daly said the situation at the bank was “appalling – we have never seen anything like this. People have joined our bank in the last five to seven years on promises of great careers – that is all down the drain now,” he said.