Write a commentSinn Féin Newry and Armagh MP Conor Murphy commenting on the announcement by Revenue & Customs that 88 staff in the Newry Office are now facing voluntary redundancy said that the fact that only six employees from the Newry Office had been redeployed had shown clearly that Customs & Excise had little care about the human and economic impact of their decision to close the Newry Office.
"This is a bitter blow to these 88 emoloyees, their families and our community" said the MP who had held a series of meetings with Treasury Officials in London in his efforts to secure the jobs and services facing the axe.
He continued "Sinn Féin had told Revenue and Customs Workforce Management that whilst they had focused on the issue of priority status staff deployment to somewhat cushion this blow, it was very clear it was not a viable option. The closure of the HRMC office in Newry and now this latest redundancy development with the loss of these jobs will have a huge impact on the local economy and is hugely disappointing".
His colleague Megan Fearon MLA echoing her colleagues sentiments said "Although HMRC claim it carried out a consultation with staff, no equality impact assessment was conducted. Closures like this affects border constituencies in a disproportionate manner and in these type of scenarios women and part time workers end up being disproportionately affected. Revenue and Customs employs in excess of 20,000 staff so there was no reason why these planned redundancies could not have been absorbed by the whole organisation through natural attrition”.
