‘There’s a lot of questions and not many answers’

ALTHOUGH it hoped to promote its brand through acquiring the naming rights for the new stadium at Lansdowne Road in a €44 million sponsorship deal, Aviva staff felt there was nothing very sporting about the manner in which the company announced its decision to cut 950 jobs in Ireland.

Ashen-faced workers arrived at the group’s Irish headquarters in Dublin aware that bad news was in the offing following widespread media publicity about cutbacks at the insurer’s Irish operations.

Aviva executives from Britain who had travelled to Ireland on Tuesday hurriedly entered the company’s building — One Park Place — as similar briefings were also held in Aviva’s offices in Cork and Galway.