Extra 250 Jobs For Co Cork

There's good news on the beleaguered economy today as some 250 new jobs are announced with the opening of a new innovation centre in Co Cork.

Business outsourcing company Abtran is developing its existing facility in Bishopstown.

Abtran currently employs 600 people in Ireland with the news being a welcome boost after it was revealed yesterday that a company, which provides contact centre services to UK public and private sector organisations in Shannon, is to close.

Agilisys Contact Services announced that its centre in Shannon will shut down and that it will transfer its operations to the UK.

However, 17 workers are set to lose their jobs when a DIY store in Co Laois closes its doors this weekend.

4Home Superstores is closing the outlet in Portlaoise on Sunday.

Meanwhile, in the North, workers protesting over 1,000 job losses in Northern Ireland are to hold a mass rally today.

The event is to highlight how manufacturing businesses in Northern Ireland lost 2% of its staff in just four days before Easter.

Almost 1,000 jobs went at aerospace company Bombardier while posts were also shed at car parts company Visteon, telecoms firm Nortel and engineer FG Wilson.

Speaking before the event, the Assistant General Secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Peter Bunting, said: "The recent job losses can be partly blamed on the global economic situation.

"But insult has been added to injury by the employment practices of some employers who have taken advantage of the weak employment rights legislation," he said, referring to the continuing sit-in protest by workers in west Belfast's doomed Visteon plant.

Mr Bunting said these would lead to further deprivation and hardship affecting families, local communities and small businesses supplying these companies.

(BMcC/JM)