50 jobs to go at Dublin editing firm after IN&M pulls contract

The National Union of Journalists says it will meet management at Independent News & Media (IN&M) tomorrow to discuss "concerns" over the introduction of a new editing workflow system at the publisher, which will result in 50 job losses.

Real-time Editing & Design (RE&D), which provides out-sourced journalism services to the IN&M, is to close its Dublin operation with the loss of about 50 jobs after IN&M, whose largest shareholders are Denis O'Brien and Dermot Desmond, told it that it will not renew its contract.

It is understood that RE&D staff were told today that the first redundancies at RE&D would begin in March and that the company would cease operating in Dublin by July.

Terry Kavanagh, the former IN&M executive who runs RE&D and is a 50 per cent shareholder, has said he will relocate to RE&D's Belfast office along with a handful of senior staff.

RE&D, whose Dublin operation is registered in the same building as IN&M’s headquarters, was marginally profitable in 2012, the last period for which accounts are available. It was set up in 2007 after IN&M decided to outsource most of its copy editing.

A related French company called Presse Media 81 that also provided outsourced editing services to IN&M and magazines, cut about 30 staff there last year and told them it was moving operations to Belfast. Julian Kindness, a RE&D director, ran the French operation.

Management at IN&M, which publishes titles including the Irish Independent and the Evening Herald, are also understood to be finalising cost cuts at company.

Seamus Dooley, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, said IN&M was “cut to the bone” and that he could not see how it could cut any more jobs as a result of the new editing system.