Arlene Foster, Minister at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Industry (DETI) and Stream Global Services are coming under pressure to explain the rationale behind the company “running down” its Derry operation while simultaneously creating jobs in Belfast.
Stream announced yesterday it was to create almost 1,000 jobs at its call centre in Belfast with £3 million investment from the government.
The company closed its Derry centre just under two years ago. At one time, it was one of the city’s largest employers in the city with 1,000 employees. Only 15 people are employed by the company in Derry at present.
The company and Invest Northern Ireland have defended the decision stating the it was a completely different project and was an expansion of existing jobs in Belfast.
However, Derry MLAs want to know how the company obtained the financial backing so soon after closing its Derry operation.
Sinn Fein’s Maeve McLaughlin said both the Minister and Invest Northern Ireland needed to explain to the hundreds of redundant Stream employees in Derry how they could justify grant-aiding the company.
She added: “Why could these jobs not have been located in Derry to compensate for the recent redundancies? The number of jobs announced by Stream for Belfast is almost equivalent to those lost in Derry. From the announcement made it does not appear that any particular skill base different than what was already available at its Derry facility is required.
“Are we to see in another ten years when the claw-back period for the present grants run out that Stream will run down its operation in Belfast, move somewhere else in the North, employ a similar number of employees and be grant-aided once again.
The SDLP’s Colum Eastwood said the “people of Derry will be rightly angered” by the announcement.
He said: “I have read the remarks from Invest NI that these are different jobs and that jobs haven’t been moved from Derry to Belfast. This will sound like empty rhetoric to the families in the Derry area that were devastated by the job losses in 2011.”
Mr Eastwood added “serious questions” needed to be asked of “our resident” Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness.
Mr Eastwood added: “How can he allow a company that closed down their Derry operation to avail of £3 million of public money to set up in Belfast?”
Invest NI have supported the new Belfast jobs with grant aid of more than £3million. Around 15 workers are still employed by Stream in Derry.
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