Talk Talk may have opted to quit Waterford 2 years ago

TALK TALK gave their 575 employees in Waterford just 30 days notice that all jobs will be lost, but company bosses may have planned to quit Waterford for more than two years, it has emerged.

A leaked “strictly confidential” document dating from a customer service team meeting on August 6, 2009, lists Waterford and Sligo as “exit sites”. The document is titled Project Sunlight.

The company, which last Wednesday week announced the closure of its call centre in Waterford, has denied it had made plans to leave the site over two years ago. A spokesperson for the multinational company said it was simply a proposal document and wasn’t acted upon. He said that the proposal “recommended the Waterford site be sold but we didn’t want to sell it to Aegis. It was a proposal that wasn’t enacted”.

He said he “didn’t think there was anything that was done” in the proposal. However, one part of the document regarding future strategies says “assume close Sligo”.

In response he said: “If you put forward a proposal 24 months ago, riddled with things that didn’t happen, if one thing happened, I wouldn’t be surprised”.

He added that the proposals were part of “sensible business planning”. “People have to look at every aspect of our business around the world. We do have scenario plans.”

In November 2009 Talk Talk announced its Tiscali call centre in Sligo would close in six months, with some of the 160 jobs moving to Waterford.

Under a list of exit sites, the document also states “Waterford, sell to Aegis”, and lists Sligo along with a large number of English sites. Among the “exit outsource partners” listed are Transcom and Wipro.

The statement released on September 7 said “the proposed closure of Waterford would see the majority of work transferred to Transcom, Wipro and CCi as well as our UK sites”.

On Wednesday, the EU Commissioner for Employment announced his intention to investigate the planned closure of the Talk Talk call centre in Waterford. Laszlo Andor wants to determine whether the company was in breach of EU directives relating to the procedures they followed in serving notice to staff.

Many staff in Waterford only found out they had lost their jobs when they heard it on the radio or read it on social networking sites.

The company also went ahead with a party held at a stately home in England last weekend, titled the Great Getaway. The party featured free beer and food, massages, laser clay pigeon shooting, croquet and a gig by the Noisettes, rapper Tinchy Stryder and Irish band Kodakid.

The call centre has operated in Waterford since 1998.