Bank of Ireland is believed to have selected UK support services group Mitie as its preferred bidder to provide it with a range of management facilities and other services in the UK and Ireland for the next five years.

This would result in it taking over the bank's contract in the Republic from current provider Carillion. Mitie already holds the contracts for Britain and Northern Ireland.

The contracts are thought to be worth some millions of euro and involves about 300 staff across the UK and Ireland. They were put out to tender earlier this year.

The existing deals, which ran for seven years, have six months left to go, and negotiations with Mitie are expected to take a couple of months to finalise.

In the event that Mitie secures the contract for the Republic, it is understood that the staff currently employed by Carillion would transfer to the new provider.

Staff in the Republic are expected to be briefed on these developments next week.

The contracts cover a wide range of services at Bank of Ireland’s various locations. These would include portering, front-of-house, mail room, cleaning and general services to do with the maintenance of facilities, machinery and power services.

These services were outsourced by the bank some years ago as part of a plan to reduce its overheads.

Mitie is a FTSE 250-listed company with total annual revenues of £2 billion. It already has a significant operation in Ireland based in Swords.

No comment was available from Bank of Ireland yesterday.