Boyers staff will argue for redeployment to Arnotts

Dublin faces the loss of another high-profile department store in January when Boyers on North Earl Street will close its doors .

The news follows this summer's shock closure of nearby Clerys on O'Connell Street, with the loss of 460 jobs.

Property developer Noel Smyth's Fitzwilliam Finance Partners, owner of Boyers' parent company, the Arnotts Group, announced yesterday that it planned to close the store on January 31st.

Fitzwilliam said that it was left with no option but to close Boyers as it could not find a company willing to take on the store and run it.

Mr Smyth pledged that workers would be paid the redundancy terms agreed with unions.

However, Siptu and Mandate, which represent the 83 people working there, said they would argue that their members should be redeployed to Arnotts when they begin talks with the company tomorrow.

Saving jobs

Siptu official Ethel Buckley said that the unions had already secured an agreement from management that the discussions would be geared at saving as many jobs as possible.

“Our aim is that anyone who walks out of there on January 31st will be doing so voluntarily,” she said.

While the doors to the store were closed yesterday afternoon, with notices saying normal business would resume this morning, life on busy North Earl Street carried on as normal.

“Closed, is it?” said one lady, as the two security men inside the shop remained unresponsive to her efforts to open the locked doors, before saying “oh well” and walking off.