Brywest jobs question lingers

The proprietor of a Mullingar-based IT firm has renewed his promise to deliver 40 jobs for the town, after the national media claimed last weekend that the jobs had “disappeared into the ether”.In a follow-up to a story carried in the Westmeath Examiner three weeks ago, last weekend’s Irish Mail on Sunday reported that far from providing 40 new jobs, Dominick Street-based Brywest Enterprises Ltd is operating with two staff fewer than that which it had in April 2010, when the new “jobs” were launched by Enterprise, Trade and Innovation Minister Batt O’Keeffe.Shaun Bryson, the man behind Brywest, said in the national media that ten people are employed at Brywest’s office in Mullingar, and said that there “will be a creation of forty jobs” as part of the firm’s new Buy Ireland portal, which is to be rolled out in the future.The forty jobs announced by Minister O’Keeffe in April were intended for the FarmersForum.ie portal which, as previously reported by this newspaper, is understood to have been “spun off” from Brywest.Fifteen of the announced jobs were intended for FÁS trainees, who underwent a specifically tailored FÁS course funded by the Department of Education and Skills. Last weekend, former employees, including one of the FÁS recruits, complained to the Mail of “late payments” and “a poor atmosphere at Brywest”, while one man, Thomas Quinn said that he “had to threaten going to Joe Duffy [Liveline]” to get paid his wages.However, another employee quoted in the article, Gerry Ford, said that he had experienced “absolutely no problems” with either pay or conditions at Brywest.Meanwhile, the Westmeath Examiner has learned that Minister O’Keeffe launched Brywest at the invitation of a local politician, as part of a series of engagements in Mullingar in mid-April.