ABOUT 900 staff at Quinn Insurance Ltd will be made redundant over the next 12 to 15 months as part of a major restructuring of the business by its joint administrators.
This represents 37 per cent of the company's 2,450-strong workforce.
Staff were briefed about the job losses at nine Quinn Insurance offices in Ireland and Britain yesterday afternoon. The administrators said they would begin a consultation process with the Employee Representative Committee next Tuesday and expressed the hope the redundancies would be voluntary. They want 350 redundancies by July as part of a "first phase" with the balance over the following 12 months.
The job losses will achieve savings of €30 million annually and help restore the insurer to profitability.
The biggest hit will be at the insurer's Blanchardstown office, where 301 redundancies are being sought. In Cavan, they propose to cut 226 positions, while 109 will go in Navan.
Four positions will be lost at Quinn's office on O'Connell Street, Dublin, while 179 jobs will be cut at its Enniskillen branch. In Derrylin, home to the Quinn family, 27 redundancies are proposed for its claims branch and there will be 54 posts cut at its Manchester and London bases.
Staff will be offered four weeks' pay per year of service in addition to their statutory entitlement, which in the Republic is capped at €600 per week.
Employees said they were devastated, and today accused the Government of not doing enough to help staff and the Financial Regulator.
"We feel frustrated. Brian Cowen and Brian Lenihan are the Financial Regulator's boss. They have the power at this stage not to stop us writing business in the UK. This is huge to us," Darragh O'Neill told RTÉ's Marian Finucane show this morning.
He said the figures that had been portrayed in the media had been "grossly exaggerated".
"While there was issues of solvency, there was never an issue that couldn't be resolved."
Fine Leader Enda Kenny today said the party's cross border forum will meet next week to respond to the proposed losses. It will be attended by representatives from the Oireachtas and local authorities. Members of the Northern Irish Assembly have also been invited.
"The economic consequences of the job losses at Quinn will be felt very severely in this border area. This crisis requires a cross-border response," Mr Kenny said.
"Irish Government ministers and the new Secretary of State for Northern Ireland must now meet as a matter of urgency and prioritise immediate and long-term action plans for both governments."
Earlier yesterday, the Quinn Group, which is controlled by the family of Mr Quinn and is the shareholder in the insurance business, said it was prepared to sell the insurer.
Liam McCaffrey, chief executive of the Quinn Group, said its board had considered a number of options but had now "reluctantly" settled on a sale.
He said in view of "the funding required to meet the solvency requirements laid down by the financial regulator, the future of Quinn Insurance is probably best protected under new ownership".
The group will work "closely" with the administrators to see if a sale can be agreed in as short a time as possible, with a view to protecting the maximum number of jobs, Mr McCaffrey added.
This opens the way for the administrators – Michael McAteer and Paul McCann of Grant Thornton – to consider the more than 40 expressions of interest they received since their initial appointment by the High Court on March 30th.
It is understood the administrators plan to circulate an information memorandum about a possible sale to interested parties by the end of May.
Mr McAteer said interest has been expressed by groups in the Republic, the UK and the United States.
At a press conference in the Hotel Kilmore in Cavan, Mr McAteer praised the staff for their "professionalism and courtesy" over the past 30 days.
He described their restructuring plan as "conservative" and said it would "put the company on a sound financial footing".
Mr McAteer stressed a "minimum" of 1,550 jobs would be maintained at Quinn Insurance and no offices would close. The administrators want to secure acceptances of redundancy by May 19th.
When asked if they might implement compulsory redundancies if the necessary numbers do not step forward for the voluntary severance, Mr McAteer said: "It's a difficult marketplace but we're hopeful we can get the numbers."
In relation to its UK operations, Mr McAteer said it had reopened all lines of its motor business and would now focus on reopening some profitable commercial lines. Talks on reopening these will take place next week with the financial regulator, he added.
Mr McAteer said the UK division made underwriting losses of €52 million last year.
He welcomed the reopening of the motor business in Britain and Northern Ireland but said there was still an uncertainty around that division. "It is hard to know what business we will do in the future," he said.