Gerald Nash (Louth, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I assume we have two minutes each. I thank the Minister for meeting with Deputy O'Dowd, Senator McGreehan and me earlier. We communicated to him in stark terms how angry we are at Becton Dickinson and Company's decision to close its plant, which has been in Drogheda for 60 years. There are 176 jobs in the firing lines and many families are affected. The relationship between Drogheda and Becton Dickinson and Company goes back to the sixties. It is an extraordinary relationship. Hardly anybody in our town, the largest town in Ireland, has not had a relationship of one kind or another with that factory. Drogheda is Ireland's largest town and this is the last remaining IDA Ireland-backed manufacturing facility of scale in our town; let that sink in. We need an enterprise task force to address the reality that Drogheda is an IDA Ireland and foreign direct investment backwater. The Taoiseach said to me yesterday that the DART is coming to Drogheda and that the DART is a two-way street. It is, but where is the IDA Ireland policy to invest in jobs in Drogheda? Government enterprise policy seems to be to move as many people as possible out of Drogheda into Dublin to work, which is not good for our community or society. Will the Minister commit to setting up that enterprise task force? The withdrawal of Becton Dickinson and Company will take place over two years. Will the Minister ask the company to reflect on its decision and periodically review it? I do not want to raise the expectations of workers but it is incumbent on the Minister and IDA Ireland to engage with the company to request that it reviews the decision. I understand that as part of a trade mission, the Minister will meet Becton Dickinson and Company in New York next week. I request on behalf of the workers and SIPTU, which wishes to meet him, that he make that request, without raising expectations unfairly of workers.

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