Bank of Ireland staff are to get lump sum payments in the region of £20,000 under a redundancy programme aimed at shedding 700 jobs. The bank revealed earlier this month that it plans to close up to one in five branches in urban areas.
The package being offered to eligible staff affected by the closures, which has been seen by The Irish Times, includes a lump sum of six months' salary plus another £7,500 for every child in full-time education. The bank is also offering an enhanced pension scheme which would allow anyone who has 25 years' service to start receiving their full pension at 50. The amount will be two-thirds of their leaving salary.
The Irish Bank Officials Association gave a qualified welcome to the scheme, but said that it would be entering negotiations with the bank shortly on the proposed redundancies and planned to seek an improved offer.
"It is an improvement on what has been offered before, but I would not call it generous," said Mr Ciaran Ryan, the general secretary of the IBOA.
"We are concerned about the impact on the pension fund although they have said it will not be significant. We are worried that the pension fund will be used to fund the redundancies," he added.
The scheme is targeted at older staff working in the branches that are to be closed down. The bank said yesterday that a typical candidate for the scheme would be in their 50s and could be expected to be earning in the region of £40,000. Younger staff will be encouraged to move to other sections of the bank. Staff availing of the package will continue to enjoy preferential rates on any existing loans taken from the bank.
Mr Maurice Keane, the chief executive of the bank said earlier this month that it hoped the redundancies would cut €65 million off the bank's €1.17 billion cost base. A bank spokesman said yesterday that although it was shedding jobs in its branch network the bank expected to be recruiting in other areas and the overall head count was unlikely to fall. Up to 500 people will be recruited to work on a joint venture with Nova, the US credit card payment specialist, he said.
