Sinn Féin spokesperson on Workers’ Rights, Louise O’Reilly TD, has said that today’s announcement that Mediahuis, the publisher of the Irish Independent, Sunday Independent, Sunday World, Belfast Telegraph and numerous regional titles, is to cut 10% of its workforce will come as a crushing blow to staff right across the company.

The latest round of 55 redundancies comes less than a year after the company announced redundancies in March 2023, a development that Deputy O’Reilly described as lacking honesty and transparency.

Teachta O’Reilly, a former Trade Union official, said:

“Today’s announcement that Mediahuis is seeking to cut a further 55 jobs is a crushing blow to workers, and confirmed their worst fears that the announcement of redundancies made in March 2023 was just the thin end of the wedge.

“It is a challenging time for the newspaper and publishing industry but the fact that today’s announcement comes just ten months after the previous round of redundancies, to me, lacks honesty and transparency, and is a very cruel and cynical way of treating any worker.

“It will be enormously demoralising for the workforce to have gone through that process only to be back at square one again today, less than a year later.

“That level of uncertainty will be hard to stomach for workers across the Mediahuis stable, and further job losses so soon after previous cuts will inevitably put considerable additional strain on journalists and editorial staff, and affect their publications’ output.

“It is vital that Mediahuis now liaises with the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), consults directly with its workers and, crucially, is upfront, transparent and honest with them so that a structured way forward can be negotiated.

“I offer my support and solidarity to those facing yet another period of upheaval, and I would urge the Mediahuis management to engage directly with its workers to agree a pathway forward that saves jobs and puts both their national and regional titles on a sustainable footing.”