Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)

Vodafone will sack more than 130 workers in Dundalk and Leopardstown and move their jobs to Egypt and India. This comes at a time when 443,400 citizens are unemployed. Clearly, Vodafone has no loyalty to Irish people. I ask the Minister of State to clarify whether Vodafone has received public funds and tax exemptions. Since it came here, Vodafone's profits have amounted to €2.2 billion with profits last year of €120 million. Vodafone takes public monies, makes huge profits and then moves on. This is the unacceptable face of globalisation and the Government must review this type of operation.

I met representatives of the Communications Workers' Union and if the Minister of State has not met them I ask him to do so. Their briefing included the minutes of a meeting with Vodafone. The union asked what will happen to workers losing jobs in Rigney Dolphin, which supplies employees to Vodafone, and whether they would be redeployed to Vodafone. It was told "No". It asked what will be the terms of redundancy for the employees. It was told this had nothing to do with Vodafone but was a matter for Rigney Dolphin. It asked whether Vodafone accepts it has a responsibility to Rigney Dolphin employees working in Vodafone and was told Vodafone has responsibility only to the business contract between Rigney Dolphin and Vodafone. The union requested that Vodafone postpone the decision to sack these citizens to enable all parties to engage in discussions with a view to finding alternatives that will save jobs and was told "No". It asked whether Vodafone can guarantee that further jobs or work will not be outsourced and was told "No". The union asked what were the cost savings involved in the jobs going offshore and was told Vodafone did not know.

This is not acceptable. The Government needs to ensure that as many of these jobs as possible are protected and that any workers who lose their jobs receive their redundancy entitlement. This needs a decisive, clear and effective response from the Government and it needs it now.

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