Associated Newspapers’ Irish job cuts

Associated Newspapers has jettisoned 15 staff from the Irish Daily Mail and the Irish Mail on Sunday.

London based AN – also responsible for UK papers the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday, Evening Standard and London Metro – has blamed the “current economic downturn”, according to the Irish Independent.

The news comes just four weeks after job cuts at the freesheet Metro. Managing director, Steve Auckland, called this part of ongoing “streamlining” of the business in an interview with The Guardian.

AN’s parent company Daily Mail and General Trust is to release it’s preliminary 2008 Annual Report in coming weeks.