Stentor has said it will take three years to break even despite the injection of £8.3 million into the company as part of a rescue plan.

Company shareholders yesterday unanimously passed resolutions allowing the plan to go ahead at an extraordinary general meeting in Dublin.

The multi-million pound investment is being made by the Co-operation Retirement Benefit Fund which will now control more than 50 per cent of Stentor's equity.

The chief executive, Mr Gerard O'Keeffe, said approval for the rescue plan represented "a new era for the company".

He said Stentor was currently in a loss-making position but new moves into "niche markets" and a cost-cutting plan would help to reverse this trend.

He said another "expensive cost" - leasing lines from Telecom Eireann - had been eliminated. The company now works with NTL which, he said, was significantly cheaper than Telecom.

He said Stentor had not "lost any customers due to the recent adverse publicity" and in the last three months gained new ones.

He admitted the company's financial track record had been "unimpressive so far", but that some of the reasons behind this were understandable.

He said the company currently has a monthly turnover of about £450,000 and he expected annual turnover to be close to £6 million when it produces its full set of accounts at the end of March.

He said the company is now concentrating on providing "telecommunications solutions to corporate customers" in the Republic. He also disclosed that Stentor is working with some of the newly-licensed telecommunications companies.

The board of the company currently consists of Mr O'Keeffe, Mr Malachy Harkin, executive director of sales and marketing and Mr Charles Jillings, who is a non-executive director representing Co-operation Retirement Benefit Fund. Mr O'Keeffe said a chairman and finance director would be recruited in the new year.

He said those directors who resigned during the year, including Mr Dan O'Neill and Mr Patrick Cruise O'Brien, had not received any settlement upon leaving the company. Mr Cruise O'Brien is now understood to be working as a telecommunications consultant for European telecoms companies.