THE “BODY blow” of hundreds of potential job losses at Quinn Insurance will be the unavoidable topic of conversation in days to come, according to a local employer.
Peter McBride, who owns three shops near Quinn’s headquarters in Co Fermanagh, says the community has been dreading the possibility of job losses.
“This has been hanging over us for weeks now and there has been an expectation that it wasn’t going to go away. A lot of Quinn’s staff live and work in the local area . . . there has been a quiet resignation that something like this was going to happen, but the reality of it is something else.”
It is expected up to 200 jobs out of the current workforce of 450 in the North will go at the group’s offices in Derrylin and Enniskillen.
The MP for Fermanagh/South Tyrone Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew said she wanted an urgent meeting with the administrators to discuss the potential redundancies.
Fearghal McKinney, the SDLP Fermanagh and South Tyrone Westminster candidate, said it was also time for “fresh thinking” to help soften the potential blow.
“We have to take the regulator’s word that the UK market is unprofitable, but people who know the insurance market well are telling me that Quinn Insurance has highly profitable lines of business here at home . . .
“If the Northern Ireland market was reopened, there are people across the North who would respond positively to support the workforce by switching their business to Quinn, and I would be first in line,” Mr McKinney added.
In Cavan, traders spoke of an economic “tsunami” for the county arising from the possibility of up to 500 job losses locally.
President of Cavan Chamber of Commerce Eamon McDwyer echoed the indignation of Quinn workers yesterday over the lack of consultation about redundancies.
He claimed the issue was greater from an economic view for the Cavan-Fermanagh border region than a “political decision” to provide funding for Greece. He added they were calling on Minister for Enterprise and Trade Batt O’Keeffe to visit the area for an urgent on-the-spot assessment.