Three counties to benefit from 136 jobs boost

UP to 100 jobs are to be created at two new emergency call handling centres in Donegal and Meath while Co Cork is set for 36 new posts as Mallow firm, Masterlink Logistics invests more than €5 million in a new facility.

BT Ireland said the posts will be located at Ballyshannon, Co Donegal and Navan, Co Meath after it was awarded a €10 million contract for the national service.

The two centres are expected to handle up to five million emergency calls from the public every year to be forwarded on to gardaí, fire service, ambulance and coastguard.

Tánaiste Mary Coughlan, who visited Donegal yesterday to announce the Ballyshannon jobs, said she expected that 999 will be eradicated as Ireland’s standard emergency call number within a generation.

Emergency call-answering service chiefs are stepping up a campaign of awareness that the number to call is 112, the only SOS number in use across Europe, but not yet in Ireland or Britain.

The Tánaiste received a hostile reception from protesters representing 75 staff who became unemployed when a building supplies company went into liquidation in Ballyshannon last week and another 22 workers at the Britvic depot in the town, who are to be made redundant next month.

The protesters jeered Ms Coughlan, who is also job creation minister, when she arrived to announce the opening of the new call centre.

The service will be staffed by multi-lingual operators who are able to deal with emergency calls from non-nationals living in Ireland.

The first emergency calls are expected to be handled in the centres, at the Ballyshannon IT Centre, Portnason, and at the IDA business park at Athlumney, Navan, in November.

BT Ireland won the five-year contract from Eircom, which currently operates the Emergency Calling Answering Service (ECAS) from Dublin and Mullingar.

Meanwhile, Masterlink Logistics will increase its staff by 36 to 276 as a result of a new investment.

Managing director John O’Regan said: “I’m very proud to be able to commit to this significant investment in Mallow and very grateful for the support we have received from local councillors and the local community.

“We are confident that this investment, local support and flexible resources will provide us with the ideal platform for further growth and development in the region.”

Masterlink Logistics was transformed from a small family-run transport and distribution operation, set up in 1983 focusing on Munster, into one of the country’s leading logistics and distribution companies with offices in Cork, Galway and Dublin.

Its customers include Waterford Crystal, Philips, Clarkes Shoes, Tesco, Blarney Woollen Mills and Smyths Toys.