Gardiner concerned over redundancies
The scale of possible civil service redundancies has been quizzed by UUP MLA Sam Gardiner.
Mr Gardiner questioned First Minister Peter Robinson on the issue and said: “Over 120,000 people in Northern Ireland are employed in the civil service and when the First Minister announced recently that a voluntary redundancy scheme was to be rolled out across the civil service here with a view to saving £160 million a year, I knew that we needed clarification on this sensitive matter.”
He went on “I had a concern the Treasury would order compulsory redundancies... if the voluntary redundancy scheme failed to save the £160 million projected.”
The First Minister said he did not think anyone was talking about compulsory redundancy.