Trade union vows to save 750 jobs and fight bank’s ‘crazy’ move

THE UNITE trade union has said it will fight to save the 750 jobs due to be lost later this year at Halifax Ireland and still sees the bank’s inclusion in a third force of Irish banking as a possibility.

UNITE’s regional officer, Brian Gallagher, called Bank of Scotland Ireland’s (BoSI) decision to close its retail banking business “a crazy, wrong-headed decision, likely borne of a London boardroom that has no sense of the strong future which the bank can have”.

The closures, starting in May, will result in the loss of roughly half of the group’s total 1,600 workforce, with 850 people due to remain in BoSI’s business banking division.