Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This matter refers to a company with which the Acting Chairman, Deputy Frank Feighan, is familiar, given that he represents south Leitrim from where some of the employees come to the Cavan office.

I express serious disappointment at the announcement that Liberty Insurance is planning to cut 270 jobs at its offices in Cavan, Enniskillen and Dublin. According to the company, the jobs will be phased out in the next 18 months as it seeks voluntary redundancies. Some of the employees in Cavan, to whom I have spoken, do not regard them as voluntary redundancies but see some of them as forced redundancies, unfortunately. Just one week ago the news came as a terrible blow to staff at Liberty Insurance and also to their families and the wider community in Cavan. The cuts appear to have come out of the blue and as a result of the company's decision to withdraw from the British motor insurance market. Some 115 workers in Cavan, 20 in Enniskillen and 135 in Blanchardstown are facing very uncertain futures, many of whom have families, mortgages and other responsibilities. This is an extremely daunting prospect and my thoughts are with the workers following this most disappointing decision by Liberty Insurance.

Liberty Insurance, formerly Quinn Insurance, has been an extremely important and major employer in Cavan town since the mid-1990s. Many of the people who work on the sites in Enniskillen and Blanchardstown are also from Cavan and Monaghan, given the level of interaction and exchange between the different offices. It will have huge knock-on effects on communities, particularly in County Cavan.

The sale of Quinn Insurance to Liberty Insurance was concluded in October 2011. The company's statement last week stated it employed more than 950 people in Cavan, Enniskillen, Blanchardstown and London. In April 2011 the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, stated that, regarding the sale of Quinn insurance, he welcomed the positives in the proposed agreement in that almost all of the 1,500 jobs in Quinn Insurance would be retained. Unfortunately, in the meantime, there has been a very severe reduction in the level of employment in Liberty Insurance, from 1,570 jobs in 2011 to 950 today, with more to be lost in the immediate future.

I am glad that the Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Gerald Nash, is present. I have called on the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, to engage immediately with Liberty Insurance with a view to ensuring the retention of the maximum level of employment in the company. The Minister, his Department and all of the statutory agencies must get answers from the company on the commitments it made at the time of the purchase of Quinn Insurance. These commitments are not being honoured. The Minister, the Minister of State and of all the statutory agencies need to make a very serious effort to support the employees who face redundancy. The need of redundant workers in the area for retraining or upskilling must be addressed. I know that there is a very committed and highly skilled workforce in Liberty Insurance. I have known many of the individuals involved for many years and the least they deserve is the full support of the State agencies to ensure they will not be deprived of the opportunity to successfully re-enter the workplace.

The employees have been given two weeks to give notice of voluntary redundancy. A week has already passed and no assistance has been made available by the company or the statutory agencies to assist the employees in the decision-making process. There were redundancies in Quinn Insurance in 2010 and 2012. On each occasion the statutory agencies, with the company, immediately offered a very comprehensive programme to assist employees in making decisions. The Department of Social Protection, Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, the then VECs, the Department of Education and Skills and FÁS all worked together in a timely and appropriate manner to provide that support for workers while they had to make extremely difficult decisions. Unfortunately, one week of the two-week timeframe the employees have been given to consider taking voluntary redundancy has passed. To my knowledge, unless something happened this afternoon, no assistance has yet been made available. That is not tolerable from anyone's point of view. I hope the Minister of State will bring a message back to all of the statutory agencies and each Department involved that they must be proactive in providing the necessary assistance without delay for those who, unfortunately, face a very uncertain future.

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