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

I understand Meta will announce significant job losses affecting its operations in Ireland later this afternoon. It is important the company be allowed to make that announcement and engage with its staff, so I will not say too much about that here today. That would be unfair and inappropriate.

Obviously, my thoughts are with the staff who are affected and their families. I assure them we will engage with the company to make sure they are given a decent severance package or redundancy package, which we would expect all employers to do, and that they will receive support from the State in terms of job search, education and training, if they need it.

I would point out though, and this matters, that the statistics out today from the Central Statistics Office, CSO, show 2.6 million people at work in Ireland, which is more than ever before. In the tech sector, which the Deputy mentioned, that ICT sector, there has been an increase of 4,000 in the number of people working in that sector in the past year. While there are job losses across the tech sector, there are lots of job opportunities too. There are more people working in that sector than there were this time last year.

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