Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I sympathise with the 350 workers at Allergan and their families who received this morning the devastating news that the company will wind down in June 2009. This is a terrible blow to an area that has suffered several blows previously in terms of Arklow Pottery and Euro Connex. The latter was supposed to employ approximately 600 people, but has bottomed out at 150 and will not expand. People in the area are resilient and will bounce back.

I must state on the record that, in 2002, the forerunner of this company stated that it would consolidate its production in Arklow and a grant of approximately €7 million over five years was committed by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment in 2003. I would like to be as magnanimous as Deputy O'Connor but I cannot, because the Government has failed Arklow. It gave a commitment to decentralise a State agency, the National Standards Authority of Ireland, to Arklow but that has not taken place to date. The agency is in the process of securing a new headquarters in Dublin with a 20-year lease and a ten-year break clause. It does not look like it will move to Arklow any time soon. I wish the Government would come clean in this respect.

Did the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment have any forewarning of this closure? If so, what did he do about it? I ask him to use all of the departmental and State agencies at his disposal to get replacement work for the area. IDA Ireland did not visit the site in Wicklow for two years. I do not know if it has visited one recently. It is a sad day for Arklow. The town can bounce back but it needs assistance from State agencies.

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