Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I too am disappointed with the Minister's response. Tonight, 500 workers and their families will go to bed with little or no assurance from what the Minister and the Taoiseach have said today. I asked the Minister specific questions. One of them was whether she had briefed the Cabinet about this. The Taoiseach appeared to know about it five weeks ago, but the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coveney, was quoted in The Irish Timesthis morning and he did not appear to realise the scale of what had happened. He seemed shocked at the number that was announced.

The Minister also did not answer some of my other questions. It is important that whatever State aid is given to workers from the Department of Social Protection is accessible, so they can get it when they need it, and is not tortuous and complex to access, as it can be sometimes. Every effort must be made by the IDA to source a replacement industry for the area to deal with the jobs vacuum that will be left. Will the Minister confirm that she will seek access to funding from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund as early as possible on behalf of the workers? Can she confirm that the workers will get proper and decent redundancy payments?

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