Eircom to seek 2,000 redundancies

Eircom is seeking 2,000 redundancies over the next 18 months.

Eircom is to seek 2,000 redundancies, a company spokeswoman has confirmed.

The telecommunications company is expecting to complete the lay-offs by the middle of 2014.

The redundancies will be across the firm but it was not immediately clear if they will all be voluntary.

Eircom said the job cuts from its 5,700 staff would be part of an ambitious cost savings programme.

Herb Hribar, chief executive, said the challenges facing eircom are significant.

“They require a fundamental transformation in the way we are organised, the business activities we prioritise and the work practices we have adopted in order to substantially reduce our costs and become more efficient,” he said.

“The programme is ambitious but the challenges are not insurmountable.

“The business strategy remains sound and our strategic investment continues. Achieving these cost reductions is vital to providing the organisation with greater flexibility.

“It will enable eircom to deliver greater value, exciting new products such as fibre broadband and improved service to its customers across Ireland.”

Union representatives have been informed and Eircom said in will enter detailed discussions on the programme shortly.

Other changes in the company will include further modernisation of work practices and consolidation of under-utilised office locations across the country.

The scale of lay-offs at the troubled telecoms provider, which owns the Meteor mobile network, is twice what was expected earlier this year.

During an examinership process in the Commercial Court, a rescue package was unveiled which at the time involved 1,000 job losses as part of a five-year restructuring plan.

Three businesses – Eircom Ltd, Meteor Mobile Communications Limited, and Irish Telecommunications Investments Limited – were affected by the examinership, which was reported to be the largest in Irish corporate history.

Under the business plan proposals before the court, Eircom’s gross debts were to be reduced from about four billion euros (£3.33 billion) to about 2.35 billion euros (£1.96 billion).

The company was valued at about 8.4 billion euros (£7 billion) around the time of its high-profile flotation in 1999.

An Eircom spokeswoman said the company intended to seek the redundancies through a voluntary scheme.