Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick East, Labour)

My colleagues welcomed the announcement of extra jobs at Hewlett-Packard. I welcome them too but, unfortunately, my constituency is about to lose 1,800 jobs in Dell and many more jobs in ancillary companies. As Deputy Upton pointed out, the number of jobs created in Hewlett-Packard is the same as the number of jobs being lost every 12 hours. We are in an extraordinarily serious situation.

I am sorry the Minister of State, Deputy Kelleher, is not present as he might have been able to answer a question for me. The EU globalisation training fund is available for Dell workers. The fund was set up by the EU to compensate and provide training opportunities for workers who are losing their jobs due to displacement as a result of globalisation. I have raised this matter twice with the Minister, Deputy Coughlan, but I was told that no application has been made for the fund. The reason given is that the redundancy notices have not been sent to the Dell workers. However, I have spoken to some of those workers and the redundancy letters went out to them over a week ago. I seek a Government response on this important issue. That fund is needed now. The first group of workers will leave their jobs in April, so I urge the Government to apply immediately for the fund. Funds from that fund have been provided to other European countries for job losses.

I support the point made by Deputy Wall. The Department of Social and Family Affairs has allocated extra staff to social welfare offices but the Department of Health and Children has not provided extra community welfare officers or extra support in community welfare offices. Those officers are under huge pressure to deal with the number of people coming to their offices. While awaiting decisions from social welfare officers, people must go to community welfare officers to get short-term payments, mortgage interest relief and the other payments to which they are entitled. There appears to be no money in the Department of Health and Children.

I made the point in the debate on health yesterday that while the Government has provided funding to the Department of Social and Family Affairs to address shortcomings arising as a result of the jobs situation, there does not appear to be any funding allocated from other Departments to the Department of Health and Children to address the issues that arise directly in that Department. An extra €170 million, for example, will have to be found to provide for medical cards, while €100 million will be forgone from the health levy. That burden should be borne across Departments. I strongly support Deputy Wall regarding the problems people are encountering when they go to community welfare officers.

There are many issues confronting people who must, for the first time, apply to the State for support in these difficult times. I met a person today who had taken out insurance on his car loan to ensure that if he ever became unemployed, he could defer the payment of the loan. He was signing on at the social welfare office but the staff at the office told him they could not stamp the form because they had not yet decided his claim. He went to the community welfare officer but was told they could not stamp the form because his wife was working so he did not qualify for supplementary welfare. Despite the fact that this man has paid for this insurance, he cannot get it because the system will not facilitate him. It is an example, among others given by my colleagues, of the lack of humanity in dealing with the problems people face when they are unemployed for the first time. These people really do not know how to deal with the system. We must address the practical problems they face.

The Oireachtas Library provides a very good research service. It circulated a document to Members on the social and economic indicators for February. That document has a section on exports. It is estimated that Ireland's exports in 2008 amounted to €148.4 billion, which represents a fall of €3.9 billion compared to 2007. Obviously, this is a huge area of potential for job creation and, unfortunately, job losses. Some sectors are particularly strong, such as chemicals and pharmaceuticals, but the agrifood sector has decreased from €7.3 billion in 2007 to €6.8 billion in 2008, a loss of 6.4%. We must build on our strengths and one of them is surely our reputation as a food producer. Exports of beverages have decreased by 19.6%.

We hear a great deal about the Green Party and it policies, and the Minister of State with responsibility for food is from the Green Party. I have not heard a word from him about this issue. Surely to goodness we should not be losing export trade in the agrifood industry, of all sectors. I call on the Minister of State with responsibility for food to come forward with proposals on how we can produce more food and value added food products. In the supermarket one can see vegetables for sale that have been imported from halfway around the world. It must be possible for the Minister to produce some suggestions for this sector.

There are many other areas that could be developed, such as campus companies. There is much potential for such companies to develop and provide job opportunities. There are also local stimulus plans. There is a regeneration programme in Limerick which I believe is a local stimulus plan. There should be others throughout the country. We have many suggestions which we would love to see implemented.

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