Willie O'Dea (Limerick City, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Ceann Comhairle's office for the opportunity to raise this matter. Yesterday morning 150 staff from Pfizer's Newbridge plant were called in by management to be told that there would be 150 redundancies. The unions have expressed concern about the scale of the proposed redundancy and the shortness of the notice, and I agree with them on that. I understand a meeting is to take place tomorrow between management and the unions in an effort to save some of those jobs. I ask the Minister of State if any State agency has made contact with the company in advance of that meeting.

The Minister of State will be aware that these proposed redundancies are coming on the back of another redundancy scheme that started in 2010 and has just finished. It involved 275 people being made redundant. He will also be aware of the fact that when this new redundancy round takes place, if the 150 target is met, it will mean that a company that was employing 1,500 people two years ago will now be employing just over 500.

As Members will know, Pfizer is employing, very gainfully, more than 3,200 people in this country. It recently made 177 people redundant in its plants in Ringaskiddy and Little Island in Cork. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, expressed confidence that this does not reflect any wider problem within the pharmaceutical industry. Nevertheless, management gives as its reason for this particular round of redundancies the fact that the drug Lipitor is coming off patent. Can the Minister of State advise on what exactly the Minister, Deputy Varadkar's optimism is based? Can he give us an assurance that we are not going to see a constant drip drip of fallout in the pharmaceutical industry as a result of the so-called patent cliff?

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