Today's other home news in brief.
Unions and management in DHL talks
Talks aimed at saving jobs at courier company DHL Express began yesterday between trade unions and management, writes Ruadhán MacCormaic
DHL announced last week that it was seeking 320 redundancies as it closes depots in Athlone, Galway, Sligo, Cavan, Enniscorthy, Waterford and Tralee.
After three hours of talks yesterday, which included a presentation to unions on the rationale behind the company’s decision, both sides agreed that a sub-committee would meet tomorrow to carry out a detailed analysis of operations at each of the seven depots.
According to Siptu, the company agreed to provide it with additional information, so that the union’s negotiators could analyse it in advance of tomorrow’s meeting.
Siptu organiser Pat Ward acknowledged the company’s willingness to engage with workers, and said the union would propose “innovative measures” with the potential to limit the impact on employees.
“The company have said that they would engage with us in a meaningful way in order to explore the possibility – and that’s all it is – of reducing the number of redundancies or limiting the number of closures,” he said.
Driver killed in crash named
A man who died in a car crash was yesterday named as 45-year-old Brendan Kelly from Kinlough, Co Leitrim. He was killed when the car he was driving crashed just outside Sligo town on the main Bundoran road on Sunday night.
His wife, Christine, the only passenger in the car, escaped unhurt. No other vehicle was involved in the crash.
Diabetic in taxi licence challenge
A legal challenge to a ban on the holding of taxi licences by diabetics, cleared the first hurdle at the High Court in Northern Ireland yesterday.
Co Down man David Henry won the right to challenge a decision to refuse him a permit because of his use of insulin.
Granting leave to apply for a judicial review, Mr Justice Weatherup ruled there was an arguable case that the prohibition breached human rights legislation.