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Ireland editors go as Mirror group mass lay-offs start

By Andrew Pugh

The Daily Mirror’s Northern Ireland editor and another senior associate editor have left the company following last week’s announcement that 75 editorial staff are being laid-off across publisher Trinity Mirror‘s national newspapers.

Gerry Millar, who has edited the Northern Ireland edition of the paper since 1999 after joining from the Irish News, is believed to have left the company last week.

The Mirror’s editor-in-chief in Ireland, John Kierans, continues to have overall responsibility for the editions in the Republic and Northern Ireland, but Press Gazette understands he will take a more hands-on role with the Ulster edition following Millar’s departure.

The Northern Ireland edition will continue to have its own dedicated news editor and staff reporters.

Paul Martin, who began his career with the Mirror in 1998 as a showbiz reporter and was made editor of Irish Sunday Mirror last year at the age of 33, has also left the company.

Last week Trinity Mirror unveiled plans to make 75 editorial redundancies across the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and People.

The latest proposed cuts are expected to reduce the editorial headcount to around 325 and have been described as a ‘further slaughter of journalists’that ‘will only accelerate the decline in the journalistic quality of the three titles’by the BAJ.

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The latest cutbacks follow a reduction in editorial staff of 168 in 2010 (those cutbacks also included further reductions in casuals).

A consultation on the redundancies began on 1 February and the deadline for voluntary redundancies is next week, with affected staff due to leave Trinity in March.

The sports departments across the Mirror, Sunday Mirror and the People are likely to see cuts at senior executive and production level, with Trinity also looking at extending home working within the production teams.

Overall the changes will see a further merger of the editorial teams of the three national titles.

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