BANK OF Ireland is moving its head office from its landmark Baggot Street building in Dublin 2 to the bank’s offices on Mespil Road in Dublin 4 in an attempt to reduce costs further.

This is only the third time the bank has moved its head office in its 137-year history.

The number of executives, who were mostly based in Baggot Street, has fallen by 20 per cent in the past year. Some 1,700 employees left last year.

The bank will move from the 20,500sq m offices on Baggot Street to the 11,000sq m property on Mespil Road, where the private banking, asset management and parts of the legal and business banking divisions are based.

The Mespil Road property will become the official headquarters from the end of March with the senior management team, including chief executive Richie Boucher and finance director John O’Donovan, moving before then.

“As part of a continued restructuring of the office space, Mespil Road is considered a more suitable headquarters for the restructured bank,” said a spokeswoman.

She said the bank was taking advantage of a break clause in the lease on the three Baggot Street office blocks and would vacate the properties fully by 2013.

The buildings, which are protected, are owned by a consortium of investors, including financier Derek Quinlan and developer Paddy Shovlin, who purchased the property in 2006 for €200 million.

The headquarters have been based on Baggot Street since 1972.

The bank employs 1,650 staff in Baggot Street. Some 700 staff are in Mespil Road, while 60 people will move by the end of this month.

The bank had been considering moving its various operations across 30 offices in Dublin and had been eyeing a 46,000sq m site project in the Dublin docklands owned by developer Liam Carroll during 2008 before the onslaught of the financial crisis.