Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

There are 600 employees in SR Technics who will lose their jobs this Friday. Another 600 will lose their jobs further down the line. Nine hundred of those jobs can be saved if the Government gets off its butt and does what is required to save them. A management buy-out plan has been put forward, but the Government is not responding promptly or adequately to it. All we are hearing from the Taoiseach is that they are doing their best, they will wait and see, they will do this, that and the other and it is business as usual. It is business as usual that is costing the loss of these jobs. These jobs can be saved. This facility can be kept in business. There is no reason for this country to lose its aircraft maintenance operation and facility.

I have met the employees in that company. They tell me they have the business, the customers, the equipment, the skills and the will. They are prepared to make whatever changes are necessary in work practices and in the way business is done at the facility in order to save the jobs. They need help from the Government now. The Government will end up spending taxpayers' money keeping those people on the dole when that money would be better used if it were invested now to keep those people in employment.

See this speech in context