Staff at Independent News & Media's Irish operations will this week hear preliminary details of the group's cost-cutting measures for its Irish operations, measures that are planned to be implemented in tandem with Independent's new £60 million state-of-the-art printing plant at the City West business park in west Dublin.

It is understood that tomorrow's announcement will not go into detail on specific cost-cutting measures. But sources have said that Independent's managing director in Ireland, Mr Gavin O'Reilly, will make it clear that the group will expect significant changes in working practices to coincide with the installation of the new printing press. One target for Independent is to change the four-day week which many of Independent's journalists and production staff currently enjoy.

In recent years, newly-appointed staff in Independent's editorial department have been appointed on the basis of a five-day week. Union sources have said that any move to impose five-day working on those with current four-day week arrangements will be strongly resisted. Already there have been severe cuts in editorial budgets, especially since the appointment of Mr Michael Roche as managing editor with specific responsibility for budgets. Sources believe that Independent is unlikely to look for any significant job reductions in its editorial sections, although the introduction of the new press in City West will require substantially fewer staff in the group's production and distribution operations.

Independent also reports its half-year results this week and these are expected to show a big improvement from the full-year 1998 results where profits fell by 70 per cent to £70 million (€88.9 million). The main reason for those poor results was weakness in the group's operations in the southern hemisphere, an area that has seen a substantial improvement in the first half of this year.

Already Independent's Australian associate, APN News & Media has reported a 53 per cent increase in half-year profits to A$36.7 million (€22.6 million), while the Wilson & Horton subsidiary in New Zealand - which was hit badly in 1998 by the weakness in the local economy - reported a 46 per cent recovery in profits to NZ$18.87 million (€9.4 million).

The Irish operations are also expected to show another strong improvement, with advertising buoyant and circulation steady.