EDITOR'S TAKE: Just to reiterate, the first quarter could be brutal for Irish banking jobs

On the scale of redundancy announcements, the revelation this week that Goodbody Stockbrokers is to cut around 50 people following the completion of its sale to Fexco Holdings, seems like relatively small beer.

But it also highlights the dangers to financial services professionals' employment prospects as more Irish institutions' assets are placed in the shop window.

Huge restructuring within all of Ireland's domestic banks is kicking off in the first quarter of 2011, with core and non-core assets potentially up for sale as the institutions downsize. The Goodbody cuts represent 20% of headcount, and a proportional move following the takeover of a larger division could result in hundreds of job losses.

Goodbody was formerly part of AIB. Word from inside AIB capital markets is that staff are largely hoping for a sale of the division, or some way of hiving it off to disassociate it from the tarnished image of the parent company. The Goodbody takeover highlights the dangers of such a move.

But this seems unlikely anyway, suggest insiders, with the profit-making capital markets division considered the jewel in an increasing rusty crown.

Even if the bank decides to spare capital markets from the cuts - in itself unlikely as underperformers and some back office staff will inevitably be targeted - it's facing an exodus of staff, with those young enough and free from family bonds already looking for opportunities overseas, suggest sources.

Writing about redundancies in Ireland's financial services industry these days is the journalistic equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. In the aftermath of the government's recapitalisation of AIB shortly before Christmas, for example, the spectre of thousands of job losses was splashed over the front pages.

Thousands could be overstating the case, but unfortunately AIB is only the tip of the iceberg.

Anglo Irish and Irish Nationwide have already been earmarked for closure - albeit over an extended period of time - while Bank of Ireland and AIB are moving away from their institutional and international businesses to focus on domestic retail banking. Even this, though, is likely to shrink.

To add to the woes, new figures from the European Central Bank show that after a ten-year period when the number of banks in Ireland swelled to 727, over the course of 2010 that number declined by 31. Current logic dictates that more firms are set to go.

Despite the ongoing troubles of Irish banks, big job cuts haven't really been forthcoming. There's a chance that Matthew Elderfield's proposal of a so-called NAMA II , to prevent the fire sale of healthy banking assets, could provide another lifeline for Irish banking employees.

Unfortunately, though, the EU-IMF bailout is likely to enforce some brutal restructuring, and it's the first quarter of 2011 when the banking job market will finally feel some significant pain.