Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Coveney, is engaging with the tech sector and, indeed, was on the west coast of the US only a week or two ago engaging at the highest level with those companies. I am very sorry to hear about the job losses in Google today. Obviously, my thoughts are with those affected and their families. The Government will make sure that everyone receives their statutory rights. We hope it will be possible, as it usually is in these circumstances, to negotiate an enhanced redundancy and exit package. That would be the norm for companies of this nature. We will make sure that people affected are fully aware of all the opportunities available to them, whether it is job search, education, training or help setting up their own business. All of those things will be put in place. While I would not diminish any job losses in any way, it does appear that the kind of retrenchment we are seeing in the tech sector is in the region of 5% to 10%. It still means many more people work in the tech sector today than did two or three years ago. In the medium term, we are still going to see the sector grow and hire again.

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