Talk Talk at "Talk Talk"

BuffyBot

scout353 wrote: »

I got a letter from them earlier this year when the company changed hands and my TalkTalk bill now says Digiweb which is Irish owned and the CEO is Colm Piercy who is from Tramore. AFAIK he started the company!

Digiweb bought TalkTalk's Irish business a while back. It has nothing to do with TalkTalk UK who own the Waterford Centre, and are closing it down.

A sad day for Waterford: the writing was on the wall for a long time - had TalkTalk not been in so much crap with Ofcom and needing to sort that out I suspect this would have happened sooner. They were never going to need the capacity Waterford brought to the table when they had their own centres/outsourcers. A big shame really for the city and those working there.

puppetmaster

scout353 wrote: »

I got a letter from them earlier this year when the company changed hands and my TalkTalk bill now says Digiweb which is Irish owned and the CEO is Colm Piercy who is from Tramore. AFAIK he started the company!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digiweb

Digiweb acquired Talk Talk Ireland in Apr 2010!

Digiweb Group has acquired the TalkTalk telephony and broadband subsidiary of the TalkTalk Telecom Group PLC in Ireland and Belgium, adding to the Groups growing customer base.


http://media.digiweb.ie/pr/2010/04/30/digiweb-acquires-talktalk-ireland/

Carefull with that, Cancelling your Digiweb account would be leaving an Irish company afaik. Digiweb bought talk talk's Irish and Belgium customer base. so they have nothing to to with Talk talk UK realistically. and Certainly no connection to the Waterford site.
What is really sickening, although I generally believe unions are counter productive and tend to drive out more jobs than they create. Employees certainly need to band together on their departer. Talk talk PLC turned over 1.7bn and made a PROFIT of 60million ish last year.

The Waterford site although an over head. Was, when broken down a profitable organisation. (talk talks words not mine). So 60 mill profit, and they decide to close an experienced and profitable operation. Consining 575 (plus the 65 earlier in the year) so 640 families that now have fallen off a cliff financialy and have very few ladders to get back up. Disgusting, Talk talk should be tainted for this. They got grants and Lower tax rates to come here they should be punished when leaving.

Boooourns

Let's not talk about the docker strike which blacklisted this city and gave it a terrible reputation.

So you're using this thread to have a go at Unions when this decision at Talk Talk had absolutley nothing to do with them? I think you either need to start your own thread or go looking for one that's talking about them.
No offence but that stuff has no place in this thread.

letsbet

krissovo wrote: »

Its certainly a huge factor for UK operation, I have a UK desk that we carry the currency risk on. Some months we make and some we lose, we are talking over €100k a month at times for 50 seats so multiply that by 10 and that could be the exposure. So if you were a UK organization which had centers in UK and Ireland currency risk will factor heavily.

I'm sure it does but I'd say it accounts for a very small percentage of the reason why this place closed. They're going to go to India or somewhere like that due mainly to wages not ER movements. They took everything they could from the Waterford site - got some great new innovations introduced, tested new products and even got the Waterford team to pass on their expertise to the Indians. It's pure greed and myopic accountants making decisions that will result in a huge loss of knowledge for the company.

mikemac

Sad for the people of Waterford, a real unemployment blackspot in Ireland

lol at that Labour TD stating she would start working hard for job creation, what was she doing until now???

Talk Talk may save money now but they may come to regret this. People don't like dealing with these Asian centers and it may cost them business and frustrate customers.
I know when I wanted to call Dell I had issues with India so went another way and Apple in Holyhill Cork sorted me out and got a sale.

jonnyfingers

mikemac wrote: »

lol at that Labour TD stating she would start working hard for job creation, what was she doing until now???

Busy conning people into electing her and then enjoying her leisurely life of no consequences as a TD.

Sully

Paudie Coffey (FG) statement, not on Facebook tho

Talk Talk’s lack of consultation with staff is regrettable and unfair – Coffey


Fine Gael Waterford Deputy Paudie Coffey has today said that news that “Talk Talk” in Waterford City will be pulling its operations out of the City, meaning the loss of 575 jobs, is a devastating blow to Waterford and the South East region. Since its establishment in Waterford City in 1998, when it employed just 30 people, it has become one of the largest employers in the South East.

“First and foremost, my thoughts are with the people affected by today’s announcement. This will come as a devastating blow to all the employees of Talk Talk; many of whom are young professionals with young families and large mortgages. Waterford and the South East Region already has the highest level of unemployment in the State. Today’s news only exacerbates this situation.

“These job losses come as a surprise to many of us as less than two years ago, Talk Talk increased the numbers employed by 60 members of staff. I am extremely unhappy with Talk Talk’s approach and their lack of consultation with the Department of Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation and the way in which the news has been conveyed to its staff.

What is particularly frustrating is that the Waterford operation of Talk Talk was held up as one of the most efficient and productive parts of the overall organisation. However Talk Talk have said that the reasons for the closure is to do with cutting its own operating costs and consolidating its UK base. As a result of this, its Waterford operation has paid a high price for being the only part of the company that operates outside the Sterling area.

“I am obviously very disappointed with this news and the very short notice and consultation period given by Talk Talk to their hugely talented, dedicated and skilled workforce. I believe the company must extend this consultation period so that staff can properly assess their own situations and that the IDA can try to find an alternative investor for the site.

“I have spoken with Minister Richard Bruton TD, and he has agreed to visit Waterford early next week to meet with business leaders in the City so as to make a full assessment of the impact of this devastating news. Every instrument that is available to the State must be used to aid and assist everyone impacted by today’s news.

“I am calling on the IDA, Enterprise Ireland and local County Enterprise Boards to renew their focus in Waterford and the South East region so that a plan of action can be devised to tackle the enormity of the unemployment problems that currently faces the region. I am also calling on Talk Talk to ensure the staff that are affected by this closure are assisted and supported by the company in any way possible.

“I have conveyed to Minister Bruton that Waterford needs a dedicated presence of the IDA and Enterprise Ireland as it is the largest urban centre in the South East region. This dedicated presence will mean that both the IDA and Enterprise Ireland will be on top of industrial issues within the City and the region.

“It is important to acknowledge that there is also a proportion of the workforce in Talk Talk that rely on their income to support their education in Waterford Institute of Technology. The presence of these students in Waterford is a huge benefit to the local economy and the cessation of these jobs places their education under threat.

“Waterford is the major urban centre in the South East and must continue to be supported as best it can be by government in these lean times.”

jimbojazz

Paudie would want to haul his ass back from Galway and deal with this and try and get positive strategies for creating employment in Waterford up and running instead of listening to oul wans singing bulls**t songs about how bad things were under FF.

scout353

puppetmaster wrote: »

Carefull with that, Cancelling your Digiweb account would be leaving an Irish company afaik. Digiweb bought talk talk's Irish and Belgium customer base. so they have nothing to to with Talk talk UK realistically. and Certainly no connection to the Waterford site.
What is really sickening, although I generally believe unions are counter productive and tend to drive out more jobs than they create. Employees certainly need to band together on their departer. Talk talk PLC turned over 1.7bn and made a PROFIT of 60million ish last year.

The Waterford site although an over head. Was, when broken down a profitable organisation. (talk talks words not mine). So 60 mill profit, and they decide to close an experienced and profitable operation. Consining 575 (plus the 65 earlier in the year) so 640 families that now have fallen off a cliff financialy and have very few ladders to get back up. Disgusting, Talk talk should be tainted for this. They got grants and Lower tax rates to come here they should be punished when leaving.

Thanks for that!

Perhaps Digiweb/Talk Talk Ireland should clarify that so as to avoid rash decisions by people like me

Finnbar01

Boooourns wrote: »

So you're using this thread to have a go at Unions when this decision at Talk Talk had absolutley nothing to do with them? I think you either need to start your own thread or go looking for one that's talking about them.
No offence but that stuff has no place in this thread.

I was responding to a post from daysah, who mentioned unions in the first place.

jo06555

jimbojazz wrote: »

Paudie would want to haul his ass back from Galway and deal with this and try and get positive strategies for creating employment in Waterford up and running instead of listening to oul wans singing bulls**t songs about how bad things were under FF.

Exactly.

decies

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Politicians can't create jobs. Entrepreneurs do.

Ireland suffers from a lack of entrepreneurs, not a lack of politicians. And it doesn't help that all of our capital for a decade or more was pumped into property development, building unproductive assets that create no wealth and no work when the final brick is laid.

Property development was money for old rope - why would an entrepreneur try starting the next Google or Amazon or CRH when he could stick up a bunch of shoebox flats and double his money? And of course the banks lost/never had the people with the skillset to decide what non-property ventures to loan to.

The basic point: politicians do not and cannot create jobs.

Thanks very much for this lesson in basic economics, "inserts bold and increases font size to emphasize next sentence" will pm you if i am struggling again.

Psychedelic

Finnbar01 wrote: »

Does anyone know the unemployment rate in Waterford?

The unemployment rate in Waterford at something like 18%, and the national average is about 14.1%.

The live register figures are as follows:

Waterford City: 12,604 (about 25% of the population)
Waterford County: 15,231 (about 30% of the population)

mikemac

Psychedelic wrote: »

and the national average is about 4.1%.

Wish it was that

Finnbar01

Psychedelic wrote: »

The unemployment rate in Waterford at something like 18%, and the national average is about 4.1%.

The live register figures are as follows:

Waterford City: 12,604 (about 25% of the population)
Waterford County: 15,231 (about 30% of the population)

Cheers Psyc. the national average figure seems small so assuming it is a typo and you meant 14.1%

Also, the live register doesn't include people doing fás courses or those gone back to education, so I say the figure is probably higher again.

Monty Burnz

decies wrote: »

Thanks very much for this lesson in basic economics, "inserts bold and increases font size to emphasize next sentence" will pm you if i am struggling again.

Now that you've got some sort of a basic grasp of this idea, you might do me a favour and point it out to all the people demanding that the politicians create jobs in Waterford.

Cheers.

Psychedelic

mikemac wrote: »

Wish it was that

Typo by me, should be 14.1%.

Finnbar01

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Now that you've got some sort of a basic grasp of this idea, you might do me a favour and point it out to all the people demanding that the politicians create jobs in Waterford.

Cheers.

I have to agree with Monty here, not trying to get at you decies but I definately think people should start educating themselves about the economy and how money works etc.

Boooourns

Finnbar01 wrote: »

I was responding to a post from daysah, who mentioned unions in the first place.

Fair enough but you dragged up something that happened nearly 30 years ago.
I'm not a fan of Unions myself but i would to see the staff of Talk Talk looked after with a decent package and like daysah said they might get more out of it with a Union involved on this occassion.

Monty Burnz

By the way, I'd just like to say that I didn't intend my post as a dig at anyone - just that if the region (and Ireland in general) is going to recover, we need to identify the problems correctly, and not expect solutions to come from sources who can't provide them.

The first thing I'd be doing is seeing if there's any large organisation that is looking to expand or open a call centre in Europe, and see if there's anyone interested in taking over the operation.

In the long term, we as a country have got to get away from these companies that employ a huge percentage of people in an area (Dell in Limerick, Intel in Leixlip etc. etc.) because every one represents a ticking bomb. We need to go down the 'Mittlestand' road they have in Germany - small and medium sized business doing high-quality work for people all over the world.

Not much use to the folks screwed over by Talk Talk yesterday, I know.

jimbojazz

Monty Burnz wrote: »

Now that you've got some sort of a basic grasp of this idea, you might do me a favour and point it out to all the people demanding that the politicians create jobs in Waterford.

Cheers.

They may not create jobs but they can do a hell of a lot in creating environments that go towards making regions attractive for investment in job creation i.e. educational infrastructure, as in the need for a university in the south east, moving the regional IDA headquarters back to the most populus city in the region, pressurising their peers to ensure that this area get it's share of new companies setting up here.

As someone already pointed out Galway seems to be the golden child when it comes to job creation.

Monty Burnz

jimbojazz wrote: »

They may not create jobs but they can do a hell of a lot in creating environments that go towards making regions attractive for investment in job creation

The government has a role there for sure, but it's usually just a case of making it as easy as possible for companies to set up and do business.

jimbojazz wrote: »

i.e. educational infrastructure, as in the need for a university in the south east

Is there really a need for another university? We have 5 already in the ROI. Belgium, with more than double the population, has 4 I think (Ghent, KUL, UCL and ULB). And if we have a university in the SE, how about one for the NW? And the midlands? And where will the money come from?

You are right, it would be great if possible, but it's not a runner I think.

jimbojazz wrote: »

moving the regional IDA headquarters back to the most populus city in the region, pressurising their peers to ensure that this area get it's share of new companies setting up here.

And there you are just setting Waterford up for another company to come along for a decade or two and then pull out, leaving hundreds or thousands high and dry again. Indigenous industry is the answer, I feel. And the IDA has nothing to do with that.

jimbojazz

Monty Burnz wrote: »

The government has a role there for sure, but it's usually just a case of making it as easy as possible for companies to set up and do business.

Is there really a need for another university? We have 5 already in the ROI. Belgium, with more than double the population, has 4 I think (Ghent, KUL, UCL and ULB). And if we have a university in the SE, how about one for the NW? And the midlands? And where will the money come from?

You are right, it would be great if possible, but it's not a runner I think.

And there you are just setting Waterford up for another company to come along for a decade or two and then pull out, leaving hundreds or thousands high and dry again. Indigenous industry is the answer, I feel. And the IDA has nothing to do with that.

Not all companies that have invested here have taken off when the tax concessions have run out - we have B&L here who remian committed (the sunglass division pulled out but that was only after they sold the business), Genzyme are well established and Hasbro has been here a longtime as well. What we need to attract are companies that we know have a longterm commitment here and that is the job of the IDA to ensure this

As regards setting up universities elsewhere I'm not interested in them - I only want what's best for Waterford - one of the first things investors look at is the strength of the educational infrastructure in an area

chelloveks

jonnyfingers wrote: »

Busy conning people into electing her and then enjoying her leisurely life of no consequences as a TD.

Sooooo true

Yes Boss

jonnyfingers wrote: »

Busy conning people into electing her and then enjoying her leisurely life of no consequences as a TD.

Unfortunately, I have to agree.....:o

BlaasForRafa

Monty Burnz wrote: »

And there you are just setting Waterford up for another company to come along for a decade or two and then pull out, leaving hundreds or thousands high and dry again. Indigenous industry is the answer, I feel. And the IDA has nothing to do with that.

I wouldn't disagree with any of that but how many indiginous industries have the capability to create 500+ jobs?

Monty Burnz

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

I wouldn't disagree with any of that but how many indiginous industries have the capability to create 500+ jobs?

Very few right now. You start off small and you grow. Instead of 500 people working for one company, I'd much rather have one company with 100 employees, two with 50, 8 with 25, and a dozen more making up the rest. If one goes to the wall, even the biggest, the others will be ok - and the other companies may take the opportunity to expand with the newly available workforce.

It's a long-term strategy, but it's one that should have been adopted 25 years ago, and we'd be seeing the benefits of it today. I wonder will any lessons be learned this time around? (and this is where the politicians do have a role)

200motels

I can't understand the constant knocking of unions on this site, without unions most people would be on less than a fiver an hour, the whole idea behind a union is the union of people to unite together to get better work conditions and pay, most of labour law if not all was because unions kept pushing the law makers to protect workers, the 2005 health and safety act was the unions pushing for an up to date health and safety act. I'm a union member and have been all of my working life and I'm the better for it. Yes unions make mistakes as we all do but the unions work for the interests of the worker.

Bards

200motels wrote: »

I can't understand the constant knocking of unions on this site, without unions most people would be on less than a fiver an hour, the whole idea behind a union is the union of people to unite together to get better work conditions and pay, most of labour law if not all was because unions kept pushing the law makers to protect workers, the 2005 health and safety act was the unions pushing for an up to date health and safety act. I'm a union member and have been all of my working life and I'm the better for it. Yes unions make mistakes as we all do but the unions work for the interests of the worker.

... mmm lets see. Public Sector Unionised Workers are over paid vis-a-vis Private Sector Workers (Unionised & non-unionised). Yet it is the private sector which is the productive sector and that which earns the money to pay the unionised public sector inflated wages.

all PAYE workers, whether unionised, public, private should be on the same pay scale and pay the same taxes and have the same benefits.

hardybuck

Waterford clearly got a lot of hand outs from the IDA and Governments over the last few decades compared to other towns in the region. Why didn't the likes of Wexford or Kilkenny etc. get a big industrial estate and a Regional Technical College? Because concious decisions were made by politicans to put them there.

Interestingly, unemployment in the region has decreased since this time last year, and also the south east has lower unemployment levels than the south west, the border region, and Dublin.

What I'd be nearly more concerned about is how badly the SME's in the town are struggling. Take a spin or a walk any day of the week and the place is dead. Two big issues here for me are rates and parking charges. I can get cheaper parking in Dundrum Shopping Centre than in on the street in Waterford.

Rates are also putting severe pressure on SME's, and are seemingly the only cost which a business cannot negotiate down. The Government needs to get the finger out and tie these to inflation.

Apologies for sidetracking the topic here slightly, but I suppose the wider economy of Waterford is under scrutiny now.