Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 June 2020
54. Deputy Ged Nash asked the Minister for Finance if his attention has been drawn to the plans of a bank (details supplied) to close a service in County Kilkenny in view of the fact the State is a shareholder in the bank; his views on this development; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11948/20]
View answerThe Deputy will be aware that as Minister for Finance, I am precluded from intervening in how Bank of Ireland manages its day-to-day business. Decisions in this regard are solely the responsibility of the board and management of the bank which must be run on an independent and commercial basis. The independence of the banks in which the State has a shareholding is protected by Relationship Frameworks which are legally binding documents that cannot be changed unilaterally. These frameworks, which are publicly available, were insisted upon by the European Commission to protect competition in the Irish market.
Notwithstanding this officials from my department contacted Bank of Ireland and were given the following response:
"In recent months, we have seen the impact of COVID-19 on our customers and on our business in a range of ways. One impact is on the roles we have available at our contact centres in Kilkenny and Tallaght. These locations are an extremely important part of our customer service operations, employing both permanent and contract staff. Prior to the onset of the current pandemic, attrition levels in our contact centres were at a level where we would often be able to offer permanent positions with Bank of Ireland to contract staff at the end of their contract period. However, since COVID, the number of vacancies arising within the business has significantly decreased. This development, coupled with expected efficiencies in our processes, unfortunately means that a number of contract positions will come to an end from late June 2020 to January 2021. We communicated with all those impacted and our CPL partners set out a range of supports which are available."
