Aviva treatment of employees 'disgraceful'

INSURANCE GIANT Aviva’s treatment of its employees when it announced almost 1,000 job cuts was “disgraceful”, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore told the Dáil.

On Wednesday, the company announced that 770 jobs in Aviva Ireland could be lost and 180 in Aviva Europe, which has its headquarters in Ireland.

Some 2,000 people are employed in the Republic.

Mr Gilmore said the company’s response to its workers was “not acceptable”.

He was commenting in the Dáil as he rejected claims by Sinn Féin deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald the Government had a “milk and water” approach to dealing with the Aviva jobs’ crisis.

She said the Government had done a lot of talking about unemployment but “so far the only action we’ve seen is one company close after another”.

Ms McDonald said that even after the briefing the company gave its employees, “workers at Aviva are still in the dark and still fearful for their jobs.

“It’s not clear yet whether redundancies will be voluntary or compulsory,” she said.

Rejecting her claims Mr Gilmore said there was “nothing the Government is doing more about than jobs”.

Referring to Aviva, he said: “I think the way in which Aviva treated their employees yesterday was disgraceful.”

The Tánaiste added that Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton had been dealing with the company on the issue on a continuing basis to minimise the impact on jobs in Ireland.

Mr Gilmore also highlighted trade missions, and the global Irish economic forum but Ms McDonald said that if the Government “is not in a position to protect existing jobs, its capacity to create new work as to be questioned”.

Mr Gilmore accused Mr McDonald of “political opportunism” and said the Government would do everything it could to minimise job losses at the insurance firm.