Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)

With all redundancies there is an acute human cost and my thoughts are with those workers being made redundant today at the Dell plant in Raheen, County Limerick.

The Deputy has inquired about when any co-financing support available under the European globalisation adjustment fund, EGF, will be available to these workers, the first group of whom are being let go today. In total, up to 2,000 workers are to be made redundant at Dell. A number of other companies that are directly linked to Dell in County Limerick have also notified the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment of related job losses.

Irrespective of the timing or eventual outcome of any application to be made for EU co-funding under the EGF, the Government has already begun to put in place relevant training and employment supports to assist those workers facing redundancy in Dell to retrain, to improve their skills or to pursue educational opportunities to assist in their eventual reintegration into the workforce. FÁS has put in place a special dedicated team to assist Dell workers in terms of individual skills assessment, occupational guidance and advice, job search assistance and the provision of training. To date, 480 workers have been invited to group briefing sessions and one-to-one guidance interviews. I understand some 345 workers attended the former session and 325 the latter. In addition, 60 workers participated in an ECDL computer training course arranged by FÁS.

A dedicated website, www.tusnua.ie, to assist redundant workers in assessing their options for alternative employment or further education in the mid-west region has also been put in place through a collaborative initiative between the University of Limerick, Limerick Institute of Technology, FÁS, the county and city enterprise boards, Enterprise Ireland and several other regionally located bodies. The majority of such supports are being provided from the State's own resources in the interim. Any subsequent co-financing received under the EGF will therefore serve to defray some of the costs of supports already being provided or planned by the State and most likely will be received some time after these supports have been availed of by the redundant Dell workers.

The House will be aware that the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment has established the mid-west task force, chaired by Mr. Denis Brosnan, which is assessing the impact on the wider regional economy of the decision to close most of the Dell plant in Limerick and the associated job losses in other companies. It is also carrying out an analysis of the potential impact of the current economic downturn on the region.

The Department, in conjunction with the relevant State agencies, is currently preparing an EGF application in respect of Dell redundancies. All relevant eligibility criteria must be met to allow us to make a successful application. This is a complex and time-consuming technical process requiring the inclusion of considerable supporting data and involving not just the Department but a number of other State agencies and external bodies. Department officials have been also engaged in ongoing discussions with the European Commission regarding the application. Last December the European Commission proposed, as part of the European economic recovery plan, the revision of the current EGF regulation to make it more accessible, effective and responsive. The new application conditions will make the fund more accessible, particularly to smaller countries such as Ireland. These include halving the applicable redundancies threshold to 500; doubling the implementation period to 24 months; increasing EU co-financing from 50% to 65%; and broadening eligibility criteria for applications made between 1 May 2009 and 31 December 2011. However, while agreement was reached earlier this month between the European Council, Parliament and Commission, the revised regulation remains to be formally adopted by the European Parliament in its forthcoming plenary session as early as next week and subsequently by the European Council, probably in early June.

The proposed changes to the EGF regulation will apply retrospectively to all applications submitted by member states from 1 May 2009. Due to the increased accessibility of the fund, it is probable there will be a greater number of applications and the fund is likely to be deployed to greater effect than has been the case to date. In this context it continues, therefore, to be the intention of the Minister, as stated previously in the House, to make an EGF application to cover Dell redundancies without delay.

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