Thomas Cook staff to continue sit-in indefinitely

Staff at Thomas Cook in Dublin are refusing to leave its Grafton Street store in protest at the decision to close operations there ahead of schedule.

The travel agent was due to close at the end of August with the loss of 170 jobs, but staff have said that its two Dublin stores were shut down shortly after they arrived for work this morning.

They said they'll continue the sit-in until the company agrees to reconsider its redundancy offer.

Customers with holidays booked are being advised they'll be contacted by Thomas Cook.

Caroline Cullen is one of the employees protesting this afternoon, she explained what happened when they turned up for work this morning,

“They came in and closed both shops and told us to leave the business, to get out, to take our belongings and leave and we said 'no'. We haven't even discussed how long we'll be here, we're here until we can get a substantial offer, something that's decent so that we can survive."