Halifax Bank of Scotland Ireland is closing its retail banking operation in Ireland – with the loss of 750 jobs.
The bank, which is owned by Lloyds, informed staff of the decision at 3pm this afternoon.
The banks is closing its 44 retail branches across the country, and its call centre in Dundalk in Co. Louth.
It says it will no longer be offering products in the Irish market but existing mortgage holders will be catered for.
Brian Gallagher is from the UNITE trade union.
“This is a decision which we absolutely reject – we feel it is totally unnecessary” he said.
“The bank has said that they have looked at options; the retail network – they say – is loosing money, they don’t believe they can make it viable, the economy in the downturn doesn’t allow growth in the retail network and they have therefore taken the decision over in London to close this bank” he added.
The redundancies are expected to take place between the end of May and the end of July.
The Taoiseach has told the Dáil that the decision by Halifax is one where the organisation’s leaving non-profitable countries.
Brian Cowen says he doesn’t expect the decision to result in widespread job losses across the banking sector here.
“I regret the fact that those workers will loose their jobs, I understand redundancy terms will be offered” he said.
“As part of a bank restructuring world-wide with institutions pulling back from markets which are not profitable for them, I’m pleased a substantial part of the business of (Bank of Scotland Ireland) will remain – about 850 jobs remaining” he said.
“This decision should not affect other players in the market, and I’ve been assured that all costs of customers of Bank of Scotland Ireland will be looked after and will not be disadvantaged by the changes” he added.
Joe Higgins is the Bank of Scotland Ireland Chief Executive.
“The historic ability to build a business by just growing the assets, and also a market in which there was sufficient activity that we could acquire new customers – because that’s always the tricky bit in retail banking, acquiring the customers from other banks” he said.
“The fact that that has slowed down with the slowdown in the economy, the fact that the funding’s not there and there’s a lot of pressure on that – particularly in Ireland – means that it’s not viable for us” he added.
