Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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323. To ask the Minister for Finance his views on a project (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31084/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware under the Relationship Framework the State does not intervene in the day to day operations of the bank or their management decisions regarding commercial matters. AIB has previously indicated that as part of its restructuring plan to reduce costs and increase efficiencies, outsourcing of certain functions would be considered in consultation with unions and affected staff. I have been informed by AIB that there are no compulsory redundancies as a result of AIB's recent outsourcing activities and last month the staff in the affected areas voted in favour of the outsourcing arrangements.

This strategy was agreed by the Board as part of the bank's IT transformation Programme in September 2013, which was designed with the objective of positioning the Bank's information technology  environment for resilient and uninterrupted delivery to facilitate digital banking, while in parallel, protecting production services and reducing costs to serve.

The Bank has selected two Multinational specialist providers Wipro and Infosys to deliver the required service both of which are located in Ireland. Infosys has indicated that they will set up a 200-seat facility in Dublin to house the staff who will be transferring from AIB as well as any additional staff who will be appointed locally following recent agreements that Infosys has signed. In addition, management in Infosys have indicated that the partnership with AIB is a springboard for them to expand its services into a new market. Infosys intends to set aside US$10 million from its global Innovation Fund for Ireland-based start-ups.