The future of 31 jobs at local newspaper publisher Johnston Press were last night hanging in the balance.

Johnston Press, which publishes The News Letter, Derry Journal and Donegal Democrat as well as a host of weekly newspapers, has confirmed that there will be a minimum of eight redundancies. However, according to the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) that figure could rise to 31.

Following a review of its editorial operations in Northern Ireland, Johnston Press intends to centralise the production operation of all titles across the province to its Craigavon headquarters.

In a statement yesterday Jean Long, NI divisional managing director of Johnston Publishing, said: “We will now enter a consultative period on the proposal itself and then examine ways of mitigating the effects on staff through redeployment and voluntary redundancies. We anticipate that this consultation process will be completed by January 30 2009.”

She added: “The proposed reorganisation will help secure the long-term future of our titles in what are challenging market conditions by achieving efficiencies in the editorial workflow and improving standards of design.”

Foyle MP Mark Durkan has expressed concern about the production job losses, particularly in the Derry Journal and Donegal Democrat, based in Letterkenny.

Mr Durkan said: “The prospect of production job losses in Johnston Press will be a source of worry to Journal staff and their families. While I understand that the cuts are to affect Johnston Press operations throughout Ulster, it is clear that this will have a disproportionate effect on staff from Derry and Donegal given the plan to centralise this function in Armagh.”

The NUJ has revealed that it had no prior knowledge of the announcement, however, it has since entered into talks with the Scottish owned Johnston Press.

A statement released by the Union last night added: “The changes affect a host of titles including the Derry Journal, Donegal Democrat and News Letter. The plans are deeply worrying for many of our members because it would be completely impractical for them to travel to work at Craigavon everyday.”