Aviva job losses - Medicine is killing the Irish patient

THE devastating news that almost 1,000 people are to lose their jobs in the Aviva insurance company over the next two years has left the workforce in a state of shock matched only by a deep sense of confusion.

Further increasing the length of Ireland’s endlessly stretching dole queues, 40 job losses were also announced yesterday by the pharmaceutical group Merck, Sharp and Dohme, in Co Wicklow.

It is disturbing that while the Enterprise and Jobs Minister, Richard Bruton, was talking to Aviva in recent weeks, the workforce was in the dark. Understandably confused, they have not been informed about such vital questions as the compulsory nature or otherwise of the impending job cuts, how they will be apportioned between the Aviva offices in Cork, Dublin and Galway, and also as to the generosity or otherwise of the redundancy proposals.

Adding insult to injury, they learned of the frightening scale of this swingeing redundancy decision from the media rather than through their managers. No wonder they are devastated.

This scenario is unacceptable. At best, it is marginally better than the cavalier treatment of the 575 workers recently made redundant at the Talk Talk call centre in Waterford, who received little information before getting 30 days’ notice of the decision to move the entire operation to low-cost Asia.

Next March is the deadline for the blade to start falling on the heads of 950 Aviva Irish staff, including 180 in its European division here. Christmas will indeed be a depressing time for those families.

The company promises that between 1,000 and 1,200 employees will remain in Ireland after the cuts. How long will those jobs last? As to talk of Aviva establishing a “centre of excellence” in Ireland, Mr Bruton would be unwise to hold his breath.

Not surprisingly, Aviva blames the slashing of its Irish operation on the diminishing size of the insurance market here. Obviously the collapse is directly related to the economic crisis ravaging the country. In a worrying development, however, growing numbers of cash-starved families are now facing an absolutely impossible dilemma — whether to meet the bills for home, health, car and life insurance or spend that money to put food on the table and heat the house this winter. How many more jobs will have to be lost before this Government wakes up to the fact that the austerity measures being piled mercilessly on the Irish people in order to bail out the banks could end up making society bankrupt.

It is crucial to regain Ireland’s economic sovereignty. But equal urgency must be given to ensuring people have basic rights to a home and a job. These fundamental qualities are in crisis right now.

Mortgage arrears have never been bigger. Dole queues have never been longer. Inevitably, the imposition of fiscal cuts by well-paid politicians on fat pensions will make people even more cynical. It is time that TD pensions were benchmarked against national economic performance. That small gesture might restore confidence in politics.

The danger is that by the time the ailing economy is revived to the tune of the IMF and the ECB, the “cure” will be so costly the country will have no society worthy of the name.