Talks continue to avert BoI’s IT stoppage

Chief Business Correspondent

The Irish Bank Officials Association (IBOA) has, meanwhile, expressed concern at reports from Britain that Hewlett Packard (HP) allegedly walked away from two outsourcing IT deals because the staff were unionised.

However, HP has denied the allegations and a spokeswoman for the US group said the Computer Weekly report was “full of inaccuracies”.

But she refused to comment on allegations that HP had pulled out of a deal with Barclays, one of Britain’s leading banks.

It was against company policy to comment on client business relationships, she said.

IBOA has complained also that since the proposed IT deal with Bank of Ireland was announced last April, the US multinational has refused to engage in meaningful talks with the union.

The HP spokeswoman said it was not invited to yesterday’s talks and added that HP was due to meet IBOA next week.

The report of HP’s alleged withdrawl from British contracts raised the spectre of it walking away from this deal also.

IBOA has been calling for direct negotiations with HP about the terms and conditions facing staff when they are transferred out of Bank of Ireland to HP under the 600m contract.

IBOA is concerned that the 320 staff affected by the move are due to be given two-year contracts only and just 400 a year in severance money for every year worked in the bank.

IBOA’s general secretary said in a statement: “This reinforces IBOA’s position, that both Hewlett-Packard and Bank of Ireland must enter serious and meaningful negotiations with the IBOA immediately.”

This allegation about HP has put increased pressure on Bank of Ireland to try and bring the negotiations to a satisfactory conclusion.

If HP walks from the deal it could make the position of Bank of Ireland boss Mike Soden untenable.

This would be the fourth unsuccessful attempt since taking office to deliver on a deal he set out to achieve since he took over at Bank of Ireland.