Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)

On 8 January last, Dell announced its intention to reduce its workforce by 1,900 at its plant in Raheen, Limerick. As I said, I am keenly aware of the impact that will have on the employees and the broader mid-west region. We had established a group of the relevant State agencies to prepare for a major job loss situation to specifically deal with the needs of any workers to be made redundant. The group, chaired by my Department, has been working to take the appropriate actions to support those to be made redundant to find new employment, including assistance to reskill and retrain to enhance their future employment potential.

Immediately following the Dell announcement, this group met with Dell on 9 January and established appropriate contacts as to who will work with the company. Since then, FÁS has had a number of meetings with Dell and will commence meeting Dell staff next week on 2 February. In preparation for job losses at Dell, FÁS mid-west had put in place a team to deal specifically with redundancies in Dell and other companies in the region. As an initial step, at a meeting held on its premises on 12 January last, four days after the announcement of the redundancies, the team offered Dell employees group briefing sessions to outline the range of FÁS services available to them.

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