280 jobs to go as HP Ireland loses Barclaycard contract

CIARA O’BRIEN

Up to 280 jobs at HP Ireland are to go after the company lost a contract with a major client.

The move will mean the closure of a support facility in Sandyford, Co Dublin, which currently provides multilingual support services, with the loss of 220 jobs at HP and 60 contract positions.

The client, understood to be Barclaycard, is moving its support services services closer to their customers in Portugal and Italy, following a review of its pan-European operations. The contract with HP Ireland will end on March 31st 2014.

It is understood that HP had tendered for the contract, but failed to have it renewed.

A spokeswoman for HP said the company would try to redeploy employees where possible. However, as the situation stands now, the jobs in the support centre have been made redundant. Staff at the facility were solely employed to provide support for Barclaycard.

HP could also seek another function for the call centre.

The company currently employs around 4,000 people in Ireland. It said would continue to add to its staff in Ireland, and plans to build a new state of the art facility at its site in Ballybrit, Galway, would go ahead.