Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

Whenever a company closure occurs the State agencies, namely, Enterprise Ireland, FÁS and others, under the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment actively work and usually move to put in place a taskforce strategy to assist redundant workers or workers who will lose their jobs. Companies have obligations and it is true that on many occasions it is left to the State to operate training programmes mainly under FÁS.

The Deputy mentioned grants given to such companies by Enterprise Ireland or the IDA. Thankfully, not that many companies renege on any of the commitments under this area, but negotiations are always entered into with IDA Ireland or Enterprise Ireland depending on from where the grant was allocated to make sure that the company concerned does not simply use a grant period or a tax period and then abandon the country. Great care is taken by the statutory agencies to guard against that. If the Deputy has a particular example, I suggest he put the case to the Minister, Deputy Martin, as the agencies under his control are usually diligent about making people honour their commitments.

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