Staff and consumers will be the losers in PTSB voluntary redundancy announcement says FSU

Regulator needs to intervene to preserve banking services.

The Financial Services Union (FSU) have described the announcement by PTSB of a voluntary redundancy program three weeks before Christmas as insensitive and a devastating blow for consumers and staff.

Commenting on the announcement John O’Connell, General Secretary of the FSU said:

“There has been no discussion with the FSU around this announcement and no signal to the staff that a redundancy program was imminent. To announce this a few short weeks before Christmas is upsetting for staff and shows poor judgement from the bank.

The announcement comes just a day after the Irish Banking Culture Board (IBCB) announced that trust levels were increasing in our main retail banks. This announcement will potentially derail that improvement as less staff will mean poorer service and the withdrawal of local banking services from communities who need it.

The Department of Finance consumer banking survey released last August found that 46% of people cited lack of staff as the main reason they were dissatisfied with bank branch service. The FSU have been raising the issue of staff numbers with all the main retail banks and the regulator for the last twelve months. We need more staff, not less, in our banks to ensure that local banking services are protected and issues like the recent IT outage in PTSB can be averted or at least resolved quickly.

The Central Bank as the regulator needs to intervene and ensure PTSB has appropriate staffing levels to meet the provision of access to cash and banking services around the Country.

The FSU also calls on the Minister for Finance Jack Chambers TD to follow the leadership of the Minister of Finance in Northern Ireland and reconvene the banking forum in the Republic of Ireland.

The PTSB slogan of “Altogether more human” rings very hollow today for staff and consumers.”

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