BT today reported a rise of 18 per cent in full year profits for its all Ireland operations despite the difficult economic climate.
While BT as a whole announced losses of £134 million and plans to cut 15,000 jobs during the year, what operates as "a mini BT on the island of Ireland" turned in "a very strong set of numbers", according to BT Ireland chief executive Chris Clark.
The 18 per cent increase in profit was achieved despite declining revenues and as a result of the " rigorous cost transformation programmes under way in the company".
Gross margin improved by 9 per cent while underlying revenues, excluding foreign exchange movement , declined by 4 per cent to £800.8 million.
The company has signed new deals over the course of the year with organisations such as Telefonica O2 Ireland, which will see the mobile firm outsource part of its network services to BT, and the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources to provide the Emergency Call Answering Service (ECAS) for the State.
BT will also be involved in the National Broadband scheme, with 3 Ireland sub-scontracting the delivery of the radio site infrastructure and backhaul transmission to support the network rollout to the telecoms firm.
"It has been a tough year with revenues impacted by the slowdown in overall business activity and heightened competition. However we have made exceptional progress on profitability through our relentless focus on cost management and securing major managed services contracts," said chief executive Chris Clark.
"We are performing very well against our strategy of being the leading networked IT services provider as borne out by the nature of these landmark contracts we are winning in both the private and public sectors. We believe that this is a direct result of the global expertise, capabilities and investment we have brought to bear in the Irish marketplace."
There will be no major job cuts among the 3,000 employees in Ireland, despite the cull announced in London.
He said while BT did not need as many engineers because of advances in technology, the Irish operations had been fortunate that because of the age profile of staff it had achieved a gradual reduction in staff through retirement and natural wastage of people moving to other jobs in recent years.
He did not expect that to change now.
Meanwhile the company announced a multi-million pound project to upgrade is network on both sides of the border in the North West of the island.
It will extend its 'next generation network' by directly linking Letterkenny in Co Donegal with Derry, Belfast and Dublin.
It will also connect with over 1,270 cities worldwide through BT's extensive global network.
The latest development will address the limited choice of high capacity communications networks, particularly in the North West. It will bring higher bandwidth, competitive prices and next generations services to businesses in the area.
The fibre optic network, with will be operational from August will extend from Dublin to Letterkenny, connecting to Belfast and Derry.
Mr Clark said: "Navigating through challenging economic times means we need to seize any opportunities that will give us a competitive edge.
"Our strategy is straightforward — the development of a world class next generation network will help all of us to seek out future growth opportunities whether through access to new markets, attracting foreign direct investment, or driving productivity and efficiency in our organisations."
The 15,000 jobs cuts announced this morning are expected to come from natural wastage, non replacement and voluntary redundancy, with BT saying it had no plans for compulsory lay-offs.
The firm gave no indication of the likely number of directly employed or agency staff jobs which will be cut.
BT also revealed it was considering bringing back some work which has been outsourced to countries including India in recent years.
A programme of installing fibre broadband might be accelerated, which could create 1,000 jobs.
BT announced it would be increasing its pensions payments from £280 million to £525 million a year, although there was no new figure for the size of its deficit.
BT said it had worked very closely with its unions to ensure that alternative work is found for any members of staff who didn't volunteer for redundancy but whose position has gone.
More than 2,000 staff have been found alternative work within BT and the company said its voluntary approach was different from other companies who have recently laid off staff.
"BT has no plans to introduce compulsory redundancies. Our aim is to work closely with the unions to reduce BT's total labour cost, of both direct and indirect staff, as this is critical to the success of the company going forward," said a spokesman.
The latest jobs blow emerged as BT announced pre-tax losses of £134 million for the year to March 31st.
The deficit follows a £1.9 billion hit from BT's global services arm, which provides IT networks to multinational businesses.
BT announced £340 million of provisions in February but added another £1.2 billion today because of a more cautious view on the progress of cost savings and the performance of the division's two biggest contracts, thought to include its work on the £12.7 billion overhaul of the NHS's computer system.
The division also booked £280 million of restructuring charges and warned of a further £420 million of costs over the next two financial years.
While its other businesses have been performing well, BT signalled the problems at the global services division last October, sending its shares below their flotation price more than 20 years ago.
BT dealt a further blow to shareholders today by announcing a 59 per cent cut in the company's full-year dividend to 6.5p a share.
PA