IBRC WORKERS HAVE said they will take industrial action if necessary to secure “just severance” for them.

Workers in IBRC voted overwhelmingly to support IBOA the finance union’s campaign for fairness and respect for all staff in IBRC and are prepared to take industrial action if necessary.

The result of IBOA’s ballot, which closed on Friday evening, was communicated to all workers today.

IBOA said that hundreds of staff met in its offices today “as well as dialling in from offices in London, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Waterford and Galway in a show of solidarity and support for the campaign”.

IBOA General Secretary, Larry Broderick commented:

The [Finance] Minister [Michael Noonan] and the liquidator should take note of this show of solidarity and strength today that workers will stand by each other and stand up for each other. IBRC workers want to support the taxpayer by capturing the value of IBRC’s assets. However, the commitments that the Government made to staff must be honoured.

Broderick said that staff are “clearly saying this liquidation may have been necessary to reach a deal on promissory notes but it was not necessary to liquidate staff’s rights and agreements into the bargain”.

The legislation gives the Minister the power to undo this injustice and we are saying very clearly today that he must undo the injustice so that this wind down can be as advantageous to the taxpayer as it can be.

The union is due to meet the liquidator, Kieran Wallace from KPMG, this coming Wednesday and said it will make the strength of feeling expressed today known to him formally at that meeting.

It emerged last month that IBRC senior executives will not be getting a termination pay-off. Finance Minister Michael Noonan admitted in February that the uncertainty over jobs at IBRC is ‘crude’, but said that staff at the bank are in a better position than they would be in a normal liquidation process.

Read: Noonan hints €1bn IBRC savings will go to repay debts>