COMMUNITY LEADERS have called for clarity on whether there is a deliberate strategy to reduce the workforce at the MBNA credit card facility on Carrick-on-Shannon before it is sold, following confirmation by Bank of America that it is seeking 100 redundancies there.

Staff were told of the layoffs less than three months after the announcement that the company is exiting the credit card business in Ireland and Britain. The current workforce is 750, making it the largest employer in Co Leitrim.

The company said that “where possible”, the reductions would be voluntary. A spokeswoman said some of the jobs would go “as early as the end of this year”, while the others would go next year.

A spokesman for the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation said the process of attempting to find a buyer for the operation as a going concern was continuing, and that the Minister was encouraged by the number and quality of the expressions of interest.

Richard Bruton travelled to the US in September to meet senior company executives.

News of the cuts was delivered to staff at a meeting yesterday. The company, which is also cutting 150 jobs in Britain, said most of them were in the collections area – where staff in Carrick-on-Shannon had been supporting the British card business – and that this work would now be done from Britain.

Bank of America’s Europe card executive Ian O’Doherty said the cuts were difficult but vital “as we prepare our European consumer credit card business for the best possible outcome”.

“While I had hoped that a buyer would be found before any redundancies were announced,” local Fine Gael TD Frank Feighan said, “we are still very hopeful that the jobs in Carrick-on-Shannon will be saved.”