Pictured (L-R): Carolan Lennon, Managing Director, open eir, Joe Healy, President, IFA and Damien Gallagher, KN Group Managing Director.
eir announces 100 new jobs as part of Ireland’s largest telecoms infrastructure programme.
The creation of 100 new jobs has been announced today as part of eir’s high speed fibre broadband rollout. The new roles will include poling crews, cabling technicians and splicers and be recruited by KN Network Services Ltd (KNNS), a strategic supplier to eir. They expect to fill the majority of these roles in the next three months. The jobs will be spread throughout the country and along with the 50 apprentices already recruited by eir this year, will bring the total of crews and contractors directly employed as a result of the programme, to a total of 800.
eir is committed to recruiting 300 apprentices over the course of the broadband rollout and will be announcing a further recruitment drive for apprentice and engineering roles in the coming months.
Carolan Lennon, managing director at open eir, said the partnership with KNNS is a critical component of the company’s broadband investment programme: “Not only is our partner KNNS playing a key role to ensure that we deliver our broadband solutions to communities right across the country as quickly as possible, they are doing so in a way that supports the local economy by recruiting staff from rural Ireland.”
Damien Gallagher, KN Group, managing director (Ireland) said: “KNNS employs over 1,500 people throughout Ireland and sees at close hand the importance of high-speed broadband to rural communities. We are delighted to be involved with eir on such an important project which will catapult Ireland up the international broadband rankings in regard to coverage, speed and service.”
To date, 1.6 million homes and businesses have been provided with access to high-speed fibre broadband by eir with the company also committed to reaching an additional 300,000 rural premises before 2020 with work already underway. KNNS and open eir teams are working on roadsides all over Ireland laying fibre across eir’s network of 1.5 million telephone poles to upgrade the services that are currently available.
Once complete, 1.9 million premises, which represents roughly 80% of the homes and businesses in Ireland, will be able to access high-speed broadband. Beyond eir’s investment plans, the Government has, under the National Broadband Plan, committed to support the delivery of high-speed broadband to the most rural parts of Ireland.