Workers take to streets over job threats

WORKERS, customers and supporters of the Quinn group turned out in their thousands in heavy rain yesterday to voice their concern about the threat of job losses at the group’s troubled insurance division.

In an impressive show of strength for the company’s beleaguered founder, Seán Quinn, 5,000 protesters in Dublin and Cavan staged demonstrations in opposition to last week’s decision by Financial Regulator Matthew Elderfield to place Quinn Direct into provisional administration.

Quinn staff took to the streets to express concern that the jobs of 700 people in offices in Enniskillen, Co Fermanagh, and Manchester in the UK in particular are at risk after Mr Elderfield’s instruction that the company cannot write new business in Britain or the North.