MoD civilians awarded additional £14,000

Civilian workers for the Ministry of Defence, are to be given an additional £14,000 as part of their redundancy package.

The MoD has also announced that those affected will also be offered a retraining allowance on top of the agreed redundancy compensation worth around £1000, plus extended access to the MoD outplacement services for a year, British Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram confirmed.

The additional payments will go alongside the normal occupational severance packages for civilians whose jobs are to go along with more than 3000 Royal Irish Regiment soldiers.

Today's announcement comes just months after the British government said that it was to retain only 11 of the originally planned 14 Army bases in Northern Ireland - a result of the IRA's 2005 statement claiming that it was to decommission its weapons.

Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram said: "While normalisation is good news for Northern Ireland, it also brings substantial change for our civilian workforce and my department has been working hard to draw up an enhanced redundancy package for those affected.

"This is a generous package for a unique set of circumstances for those MoD civilians in Northern Ireland made redundant between 1 August 2006 and 31 December 2008."

He continued by saying that the payment is being made, in recognition of a unique set of circumstances, to MoD civilians based in Northern Ireland which are a combination of the following factors.

He added: "The pressures and restrictions arising from their association with the Armed Forces in Northern Ireland, which they experienced whilst working for the MoD and are likely to continue to affect them in the immediate aftermath of being made redundant.

"The difficulties they may experience as a result of normalisation and directly arising from their former association with the Armed Forces in Northern Ireland.

"And the effect of those pressures being exacerbated by the fact that the whole of the Royal Irish (Home Service) is being disbanded, affecting over 3000 individuals and nearly 50% of the civilian workforce are losing their jobs over a compressed timescale."

Mr Ingram added that the new package went significantly beyond statutory entitlements, but was well deserved.

He said: "This is a generous package for a unique set of circumstances for those MoD civilians in Northern Ireland made redundant between August 1 2006 and December 31 2008."

The bases to face closure over the next two-years are St Patrick's Barracks, Ballymena; Shackleton Barracks in Ballykelly; and St Lucia in Omagh.

The closures are part of the end of Operation Banner, which is Army's support role for police during the Troubles and the longest running British Army operation in history.

Operation Banner is due to end on August 1 2007, by which time the Army presence in the province will have been greatly reduced, dropping from 11,000 to 5,000.

However, around 2000 MoD civilian posts are likely to be retained in Northern Ireland to support the future peacetime garrison.

(EF/SP)