Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 7 February 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Proposed Acquisition of Celtic Media by Independent News & Media plc: Discussion

12:00 pm

Mr. Robert Pitt:

I accept that 100% and I have had a lot of staff write to me and communicate those concerns. I have always responded to every single one of them. I understand their concerns. We are trying as hard as we can to address that. In the circumstances, we did the best we could. One always learns.

I was asked about concern around the BT printing plant. It was remarked that I was an absentee landlord there. I assure the committee that the announcement to all the staff that the plant was going to shut down was made by me. I went up there. I then attended weekly meetings with the unions to help them understand what process was going on there. I visit our Northern Ireland business very often. The major part of the question was whether there was any risk to our other printing plants or printing plants in general. We have no plans at the moment to divest of any other printing plants in Ireland. Actually, printing plants are quite busy in the evening time at the moment. It is driven by the daily papers and the slots that one needs to get through them. The capacity since Royal Avenue closed down means that there is no need for that question for quite a few years. To clarify, Celtic Media's printing plant will continue to print the newspapers we are buying. We are not buying the printing plant, but the jobs are protected because we are leaving those contracts in the plant which will remain in other hands.