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GLOBAL SECURITY GIANT G4S has closed one of its Dublin bases in a move that made 24 staff redundant.
The company shuttered one of its security centres, in Citywest, which Fora understands provided remote security monitoring services for thousands of commercial properties and businesses throughout the Republic of Ireland.
The customers’ premises will now be remotely monitored from Belfast, instead of Dublin.
G4S said that this was a once-off move, adding that it has no other plans at present to shift operations from the Republic to Northern Ireland.
It also said as a direct result of the closure it is recruiting an extra 18 staff in Belfast. It would not confirm if any of the new hires would include workers made redundant in Dublin.
The UK-based security services firm is one of the world’s largest companies, with sales of about £7.6 billion (€8.5 billion) annually. It is the biggest security provider globally, with over half a million people in its workforce.
Belfast
In a statement to Fora, G4S managing director of monitoring Giovanni Grosso said: “Following a consultation process we migrated our Ireland technical monitoring services to our state-of-the-art monitoring centre in Belfast from Dublin.
“(This) resulted in 24 redundancies. It was completed in July.”
He said that the main reason for the change was to improve “operational consistency for our Irish business and to deliver service level improvements”.
“Our business support function and technical services for our customers remains in Dublin,” he said.
Grosso added that G4S is the industry leader in the Republic in its areas of security. He said; “We have no plans to change this position and will continue to invest and maintain our presence in the Republic.”
Size
G4S remains one of the largest security companies in Ireland, employing about 2,400 people here. It dominates the cash-in-transit market, while internationally it has interests in everything from prisons to clearing minefields.
However its reputation took a hit in 2012 when it failed to provide enough security for the London Olympics. Military personnel were drafted in to fill the void after G4S couldn’t satisfy the terms of its contract for the sporting event.
Locally, G4S has snapped up several rivals over the years. It took over Irish security business Omada and security communications and alarm monitoring firm Bell Communications in 2007.
The firm also spent €2.5 million when it acquired alarm monitoring company AMS in 2010.
It shed staff in Ireland after recording multimillion-losses in some of its core operations during the recession.
In 2010, the company had about 3,000 staff in the Republic across all divisions. This dropped afterwards, however it has increased substantially in the last year or so.
A G4S spokeswoman said the company now employs 2,385 people in the Republic, compared to just under 2,000 in 2016.
Written by Paul O’Donoghue and posted on Fora.ie
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My band Cruachan made it to the last ten this year, so close to making the final six for the televised final. A totally different song than normal – celtic folk mixed with metal, thin lizzy meets horslips. Anyway, we’ll release our submission ‘The Blacksmith’ as a standalone single on the same day as Irelands semi final so plz check that out and see what you think
@Keith Fay: if ye make it it’ll be the first good act since Lordi.
@Kieran Fitzgerald: Cheers Kieran, we’ll most likely try again for next year. Ireland needs to stop sending pop!
@Keith Fay: it’d be fine if it was good pop but the best we can do some some lad who can do the Louis Walsh dance move. A.K.A Standing up off a stool on a key change.
And who selects the songs presented on the late late show? Or is it who you know?……
@Rebecca Owens: this is what I was told – “We had a judging panel of over 30 Radio, TV and Entertainment professionals as well as Eurovision fans shortlisting the songs”
@Keith Fay: lol.. Rubbish.. Johnny Rotten!! (English Man). All candidates are politically / agenda picked.
I watch the Eurovision but often it feels like the judges don’t. It feels like they are still locked in the past with no idea of what actually succeeds in the Eurovision nowadays. I mean the audience of Eurovision are hardly diehard fans of the Late Late show way of selecting singers. Johnny Rotten will probably go in purely for the novelty factor.
Yes but I can’t watch Turbity or Marty Whelan, so that rules out Eurosong tonight or Eurovision on RTE.
I watch all kinds of everything
nul points – nein danke
50% polled have no interest, yet the viewing figures every year are huge.
Funny that.
@Eamonn Duggan: Viewing figures are rigged.
@Roger Bond: or more simply, the Journal commenters are not representative of the general population.
@Eamonn Duggan: A quick Google search tells me that, at 314,000 viewers, it wasn’t even in the top 50….
Listened to the songs, i cannot see any going through never mind winning. The competition should be more open to the public. Like it was when it started. A knock out competition
I do watch it, it’s actually quite good.
The bloc vote argument and the naff song argument come from people who haven’t watched the contest in years.
The quality has improved songwise, the winners are not all eastern bloc, recent winners: Netherlands, Italy, Portugal, Sweden (twice), Austria, Denmark.
I do think RTÉ needs to make more of an effort when you see what the rest of Europe brings each year. We won’t be holding that record for much longer and when that happens, which it will, we won’t be able to tug at the Johnny Logan nostalgia strings any longer. Change if approach is needed now.
Look at United Kingdom, coming second last year, would have won only for Ukraine, however end up hosting in Liverpool this year, so they may as well have won the thing last year.
Every mention of John Lydon and P. I. L. has been removed!!! Why??
@sean o’dhubhghaill: Cause the system don’t like it.
@Keth Warsaw: It’s a great rock ‘n roll swindle if you ask me.
@sean o’dhubhghaill: And tonight….never mind the bolox.
@Keth Warsaw: bollix
Yes, taking a shot everytime Marty makes a patronising remark about one of the other countries.
The Eurovision became a complete joke show when those Eastern European countries came onboard.
@Roger Bond: So you’d kick out all the countries east of Berlin?
junket for some who look forward to the trip yearly and the taxpayers being fleeced to pay for such trips , RTE. And their Mafia and political connections wast of taxoayers money as some sections of society go hungry and have to live in the cold homes if they have one to live in .
Has become too big. Bring back four singers and frocks, and a real connection. Don’t need to watch pornstars throwing out noise.
…Never gonna happen.
Not since My Lovely Horse.
Let JR represent Ireland. We have been too anodyne fit too long.
Eurovision peaked in 2006.
@Kieran Fitzgerald: 1970 s
I did and it was cringeworthy
Amateur hour
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