A round-up of today's other stories in brief.

Outsourcing by Vodafone affects 190 jobs

Vodafone Ireland has confirmed that 190 staff will be affected by a decision to outsource its IT application development and maintenance functions to IBM.

The 60 permanent and 130 contract staff will be offered alternative roles in Vodafone or transferred to IBM. The mobile operator said it did "not anticipate any net job losses as a result of this decision".

African Diamonds raises £2.36m

Exploration group African Diamonds has raised £2.36 million (€3.48 million) from investors in Botswana through the placing of 1.9 million new shares.

The AIM- and Botswana-listed company said the money would be used for working capital purposes, including developing the group's joint venture with De Beers in Botswana, developing Kukama, its own exploration company in Botswana, and seeking to build a business in Congo.

NIB in three-year credit union deal

National Irish Bank has signed a three-year partnership with Le Chéile Consulting that will enable some of the bank's products, including its popular LTV (loan-to-value) mortgage, to be made available to credit union customers.

Campaign to urge more innovation

A Government-backed awareness campaign will seek to make employers, staff and trade unions "more open to the benefits of partnership and innovation in the workplace, regardless of size or sector".

The campaign is part of the National Workplace Strategy, which seeks to make firms more innovative.

Aer Arann staff to ballot for action

Workers at Aer Arann are to ballot for industrial action, up to and including full strike action.

Trade union Siptu said last night that its Aer Arann section had unanimously decided on the move after the airline failed to engage positively with it "on a significant number of outstanding issues regarding the outsourcing of operational and check-in functions". Siptu said the ballot should be concluded by the weekend.

Assurelink to be wound up

Assurelink, a non-profit company supplying software products to insurance brokers, will be wound up on November 1st.

The company was set up by seven life assurance companies in 1994 to develop software products.

With many life companies now developing their own products, the shareholders decided further investment in Assurelink was not merited. The winding up will lead to six redundancies.