Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

This morning it was reported that AIB, the Government-owned bank, was planning to announce some 2,500 redundancies today. In fact, the majority of workers heard this on Bloomberg TV this morning. As the Government is the dominant shareholder in the bank, will the Tánaiste confirm that number and tell us when an announcement will be made? When was he informed of this announcement and what actions has the Government taken since to minimise the number of job losses? When we add this figure to the 750 redundancies in Bank of Ireland, 950 in Aviva and 950 in Ulster Bank, the losses completely obliterate all of the gains achieved by IDA Ireland this year and all of the gains the Taoiseach highlighted in the quarterly household survey yesterday. It is clear that we there is a crisis in the financial sector.

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