Hundreds of water jobs to be lost

Hundreds of jobs are to be lost in the water company

Up to 500 jobs are to go in Northern Ireland's water industry, it has been confirmed.

Katharine Bryan of Northern Ireland Water said the redundancies are needed to help reduce costs.

She said the current workforce of about 1,900 will be cut to 1,400 as part of a new strategic business plan.

The jobs will go over three years and will hit the firm's industrial division as well as engineering, administration and scientific divisions.

"It's not all bad news, it sounds a lot but in fact we have been able to transfer quite a significant number of people, almost 300, back to the civil service ahead of the new company being created," she said.

Katharine Bryan said the job losses were necessary

"We backfilled some of those using temporary posts and at the same time recruiting to some of the new skills that we need."

The jobs will be lost over the next three years and will hit the company's industrial division as well as its engineering, administration and scientific divisions.

Northern Ireland water was set up on 1 April as a government-owned company.

It has a turnover of £400m and is investing £1m every working day to update water and sewerage infrastructure which has suffered from chronic under-investmnent.

The government had intended that consumers would contribute to the company's income this year with the introduction of domestic water charges, but they have been put on hold.

The new assembly is now to look at the issue of water charges.

Chancellor Gordon Brown is under pressure to provide the funds to allow the Executive to defer charges for the first year at least.

The job losses will prove controversial as the water company is still trying to improve its performance in cutting leaks.