Bank of Ireland and AIB are set make deep cuts in the coming weeks, with as many as 4,000 jobs on the line, according to reports.

Layoffs have long-been considered inevitable at Ireland’s two largest banks, but so-far the policy of non-replacement of departing staff and non-renewal of contracts has already shed over 3,000 roles.

But deeper cuts are necessary, according to reports in the Sunday Independent, with AIB allegedly pondering an additional 3,000 redundancies and BoI expect to announce up to 1,000 lay offs in the next two weeks.

Within AIB, many of the roles are expected to go within support services supplied to the bank’s businesses in Poland, the UK and the US, which are up for sale as a result of its EU restructuring agreement.

Bank of Ireland, meanwhile, has also been selling off non-core divisions under the terms of its EU restructuring plan, including its asset management arm and New Ireland Assurance Company. The jobs will therefore hit its head office operation as well as its retail functions.

“We have been aligning our costs with new, lower levels of business activity throughout the group and we are committed to continuing this,” a spokesperson said.

The IBOA, the finance union in Ireland, has cautioned against taking a “knee-jerk approach of simply cutting staff”.

“Just like the reckless lending policies of recent years, job cuts may offer a short-term fix – but in the longer term they can have disastrous consequences creating a downward spiral of falling business that leads to further collapse to the detriment of staff, customers and the economy as a whole,” it said.