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.