Budget closing Mullingar branch

Mullingar is to lose another four jobs as the Budget Travel shop based at Harbour Place will be one of the 14 stores across the country to close after the travel giant announced a "restructuring" plan at the end of last week.Coupled with the job losses at Budget Travel in Athlone the county will have another nine people to add to its growing list of unemployed.PR manager for the budget group, Clem Walsh, said yesterday (Monday) that the Mullingar closure was "very sad" and that the company regretted having to make the cuts and closures."Some of the people working at the shops affected by the cuts have been with us a very long time," he said. "It's regrettable and sad that they are closing."The company has said that it will be starting a 30-day consultation process with staff and it is as yet unclear how long the shops will remain open for. Budget has only said that restructuring will take place in the "coming months".In an online statement, Eugene Corcoran Chief Executive of Budget said that business was down by 40 per cent in the last year and that trends showed that customers now preferred to book holidays on the internet rather than using shops.In total 14 of Budget's 31 shops are to close and staff numbers will be reduced from 266 to 171, with 75 employees to go from shops closures and a further 20 to be cut from head office.This morning staff at the Mullingar branch of Budget said that they "weren't allowed" to talk about the ongoing redundancy process.Budget have stressed that the measures have "absolutely no implications" for those who have already or intend to book holidays with the company.