Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this important matter and I thank the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, for being present to respond. I wrote to the Minister last evening and now we have the opportunity to share our thoughts on the very distressing situation in Castleblayney, a town that suffered recent significant job losses with the closure of the Cargill Integra plant, a meat processing facility in the town, where 70 jobs were lost.

On Monday, it emerged that Musgrave, the supplier to the SuperValu store in Castleblayney and despite the fact that it was engaged in direct negotiations with the owner, Mr. Jim McConnon, and his accountant over some time previously, proceeded unilaterally and sought the appointment of a temporary liquidator through the High Court.

While the consequence of that is devastating for Mr. McConnon and his family, the closure also was devastating for the 40 full-time and 15 part-time workers in this significant store located in that small Border community. I appeal directly to the Minister to use his good office, as well as that of the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, to engage directly with the Musgrave Group in Cork and to impress on it the importance of resuming the negotiation. This negotiation was against the positive development of the securing by Mr. McConnon of certainty of tenure as a result of a previous protracted negotiation with the bank and others. On that basis, Mr. McConnon believed there was indeed a workable way forward that would have both protected his business and importantly, from a priority view in my case, would have protected the employment of the approximately 55 people who now find themselves numbered among the unemployed.

I hope the Minister is in a position to outline to Members what steps he has undertaken or intends to undertake. It is of huge importance that negotiations which are understood to be proceeding in good faith are not being undermined by duplicity whereby on the one part, there is an engagement and on the other, one of the parties is preparing literally to pull the carpet from underneath the other. This is the position that presented in this regard last Monday. Mr. McConnon and his colleagues had travelled to Dublin for what was a continuum of an engagement that had been taking place over a preceding period. Simultaneously, however, Musgrave was before the High Court and an army of approximately 30 redshirted people employed by that group was en route to Castleblayney to carry out a stock take. This is not the way to have a relationship and what is involved here is a highly serious matter in respect of procedure, disposition and attitude. Whatever about the issues and difficulties at its core, there must be some sense of straightforwardness and appreciation of what is involved in the round. People should not take decisions unilaterally that will have such devastating consequences. I hope the Minister's office and Department will impress this point on the principal in this instance, namely, the Musgrave Group as the suppliers.

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