Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To date the liquidation has cost the taxpayer over €2.5 million. Natrium or the previous holding company have not paid anything. This is money which could have been spent in many other places but people are running away with millions in their back pocket and substantial assets while 600 workers and concession holders, who are often forgotten, are left high and dry.

This may be a question for the Minister of State at the Department of Education and Skills, Deputy Damien English, but watching the programme it struck me that, now that resources are becoming available again, we need to move back into in-company training and give support to companies for the upskilling of existing staff. Job demands are changing so much that people who may have been in a job for some years need to be given support and employers who want to upskill their staff need to be given assistance to bring skill levels up to where we are at in the current jobs market. I ask the Minister of State to look at Skillnets in the context of a new budget.

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