Ulster Bank job losses may be 'first of thousands'

The 750 job losses announced by the Ulster Bank Group this morning may be the first of thousands of losses in the troubled sector, according to Opposition parties.

Fine Gael enterprise spokesman Leo Varadkar urged Ulster Bank to minimise the number of branch closures and to try and limit redundancies. "These redundancies are likely to be followed by thousands more in the financial sector."

“The scale of job loss announcements is rising all the time, with new redundancies being announced almost every day. Dell has already announced 1,900 redundancies, and just over a week ago more than 900 redundancies were announced in one day across a range of companies,” he said.

Earlier today the Ulster Bank Group confirmed it was ending the First Active brand in Ireland and would merge the majority of the branches with Ulster Bank. Some 550 of the redundancies will come from the Republic with the remainder from Northern Ireland.

In a statement the Ulster Bank Group said First Active customers do not need to take any action as their accounts will automatically transfer to Ulster Bank over the coming year.

Labour Party Seanad spokesperson on finance Alan Kelly said the redundancies were the “first substantial post property-bubble job losses in the retail bank sector but not, I suspect, the last”.

Mr Kelly said today’s announcement was a high-profile representation of a problem endemic across the sector and the broader economy.

“In many instances these people who now face unemployment are well educated, highly qualified staff and as such, represent a significant resource,” he said.

“People are still waiting for some indication that this Government has a plan for Ireland to get out of this mess. Nothing that we have seen from the Government to date would suggest that any such plan is in place,” Mr Kelly added.