Quinn workers meet politicians in Navan on jobs

Local politicians have pledged their support to the 600 Quinn Insurance workers from the county whose jobs remain in jeopardy and have appealed to the administrators to do everything in their power to protect jobs. An emergency meeting of Meath County Council took place on Monday morning where councillors pledged their support to employees of Quinn Direct and the Quinn Group and called on the administrators to do everything in their remit to protect jobs in Navan and other Quinn offices. A delegation from Meath County Council, including Chairman William Carey and the whips of the political parties, is to meet with the administrators next week to stress the importance of preserving local jobs. Meath County Council's director of economic development, Kevin Stewart, is also expected to attend the meeting. Some 200 staff are employed at the Quinn Insurance offices in Navan and part of the office had been recently fitted out to accommodate a further 150 jobs that were to be transferred from other Quinn offices but would also include the creation of some new posts. However, following the appointment of administrators to the company, this had been put on hold. A further 400 of the 1,000 staff working at the Blanchardstown office are from Meath. Three weeks ago provisional administrators were appointed to Quinn Insurance following an application by the Financial Regulator at the High Court and last Thursday Quinn Insurance withdrew its challenge to the appointment of permanent administrators. The Regulator also ordered that the company cease writing new new business in Northern Ireland and the UK, a move that is impacting greatly on the Navan office. Workers at Quinn's Navan offices held a meeting with politicians, Chamber of Commerce representatives and local media last Thursday seeking support to protect jobs and to highlight the urgency that the company be able to resume writing new business in Northern Ireland and the UK. Employee Emma Woods said the main focus of the meeting was a plea to save their jobs and said a lot of the media focus is on the offices in Cavan and Enniskillen and that it is important that they "put Navan on the map". She said the majority of staff in Navan support the Northern Irish and Scottish business and that 100 per cent of the claims department worked in that area and 70 per cent of staff in the private lines business. "Our main gripe is the ban on selling and trading in the UK for the past two weeks. It is having a huge impact and we are losing €1.5m per day. "No company can sustain that level of loss, and it is not only impacting on sales but also claims notifications are going to drop off." Apart from the staff directly employed, Ms Woods said that from the canteen to the milkman and from garages to solicitors in the area, she could not stress how important it is to save jobs in Quinn Insurance and to keep the company in Navan. Kevin Walsh, who is a manager in the claims department, said their first priority is to get Northern Ireland and the UK up and running again and added that it is not just the 200 jobs in Navan that are affected with 400 staff in the Blanchardstown office also being from Meath. He said that it is easy to segment off the non-profit making parts of the UK business. A petition supporting Quinn staff and calling for the restrictions to be lifted on the UK business was presented to Financial Regulator on Friday by employee representatives and the regulator said that a decision on the UK business would be expected within days.