THERE WERE gasps when Eircom dropped the bombshell this week that it plans to cull 2,000 from its 5,700 staff.

That is double the figure originally intended and means one in three will leave the business.

Eircom’s ability to shed thousands over the years through various “voluntary parting” schemes has never ceased to amaze – but this is different.

At least new chief executive Herb Hribar isn’t hanging around in taking action to sort out the company. He’s only in the job a matter of weeks but has taken the bull by the horns.

Too often in the past, Eircom has offered redundancy schemes that addressed a short-term difficulty but never resolved the long-term viability of the business.

Essentially, it got the private sector owner of the day to the exit door, where the problem could be handed over to the next set of vultures.

Given the scale of the company and its importance to the Irish economy, we can only hope Herb’s bold move works.

IRISH ITsoftware company MMSOFT Design has signed another significant distribution contract as the company continues to grow.

In September, it signed a deal with Dutch company Secom Software worth €1.5 million.

It has now signed a €500,000 contract with Wexford-based reseller Reflex. The company has hired two additional staff to support the distribution of MMSOFT’s software in Ireland, which monitors and manages IT infrastructure.

THERE WASa great line this week from Friends First economist Jim Power in relation to bankers at a Macra na Feirme conference.

Power noted that agriculture was probably the only area of the economy where credit was flowing “reasonably freely” at present.

“But if you believe in the wisdom of bankers and the prescience of bankers, think again,” he cautioned the young farmers in the audience. “They haven’t a clue. They never had, they never will.”

Power should know, having previously worked for Bank of Ireland and AIB.