Report: Administrators to seek 800 redundancies at Quinn

Eight hundred redundancies are being sought by administrators at Quinn Insurance, according to reports.

The joint administrators of the troubled company are planning the lay-offs as part of a major downsizing of the insurer, according to today's Irish Times.

The plan would mean one in three Quinn Insurance will be made redundant, with the lay-offs to be voluntary and rolled out over a 12- to 15-month period.

However, 300 jobs would be lost immediately.

It is understood the scale of the redundancies is because of the ban on Quinn operating in the UK and the North.

The Financial Regulator has partially lifted the restrictions, but the company is still without 90% of its UK market.

Workers will be briefed on the plan tomorrow.

Meanwhile, employee representatives will appear before an Oireachtas Committee today to outline what they say is a "ludicrous" situation.

Employee spokesperson Mona Bermingham said the Regulator's ban on doing full business in the UK has put these jobs needlessly at risk.

She expressed anger at the fact that the levels of redundancies proposed were being revealed in the media, saying workers themselves had received no information on the numbers set to lose their jobs.

"We weren't given any indication of numbers or localities, or indeed criteria for job losses," Ms Bermingham said.

"So if these figures and this news is accurate, I think it's disgraceful that we are hearing it through the media."