SCOTTISH MEDIA group Johnston Press, which owns 13 regional newspapers in Ireland, is set to make up to 19 staff at the Limerick Leaderredundant after deciding to move its pre-press activities there to a site in Northern Ireland.

Staff in Limerick were informed of the decision yesterday.

The move is planned for September, with the redundancies pencilled in for August 28th.

“Following a review of newspaper production operations, a proposal has been made to cease pre-press activity in Limerick and move the majority of the pre-press function serving Johnston Press Republic of Ireland titles to Carn in Northern Ireland,” the company said in a statement.

The newspaper's pre-press section, located in the Leader'soffices on O'Connell Street, Limerick, sets all the advertisements for newspapers owned by Johnston Press in the Republic.

“Every effort will be made to minimise the impact of these proposals on those affected through redeployment and voluntary redundancy where possible,” Johnston Press said.

In May, Johnston Press pulled the plug on the sale of its Irish regional newspapers after failing to receive a sufficiently high bid.

The top bid received was believed to have been about €35 million.

Johnston Press, which is heavily indebted, paid €260 million to acquire the Irish titles over the past four years.

The titles include the Limerick Leader, Kilkenny People, Leinster Leaderand Tallaght Echo.