Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will take this matter on behalf of the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Peter Burke. I thank Deputy McCormack for raising this important matter. The Minister, Deputy Burke, and I share his deep concern for those staff and their families in County Offaly who are impacted by the decisions of the companies.

In January 2025 , Nelipak Healthcare of Clara, County Offaly, announced that it had undertaken an analysis of sales forecasts and operational needs in the UK and Ireland, and a decision was made to recommend up to 40 redundancies. This reorganisation is a post-Covid-19 correction following a return to pre-Covid volumes and a need to reduce budgets. Staff were notified by the company of its decision, and a formal collective redundancy process is under way, with the first redundancies expected to take place at the end of February 2025. Nelipak Healthcare operates a second Irish facility in my home county of Galway, which is not affected by this decision.

This is very disappointing news for Clara, where this facility has provided valuable employment for 30 years. Our sympathies are with those effected by this announcement in what is a very difficult time for them all. In response, the Government is on hand to support those workers. Our agencies will work to support the employees affected in the period ahead as they pursue alternative employment. This will include sharing the skills profiles of impacted employees with companies that may be hiring, be that with multinationals in IDA client bases or indigenous companies through Enterprise Ireland. In parallel, the IDA continues to engage with Nelipak Healthcare senior management to assist the company, which has indicated that it is committed to supporting affected employees. The IDA will also provide introductions to companies that are recruiting locally and support services for staff affected.

As a country we are close to full employment. The economy is well diversified, with hundreds of thousands of people employed in indigenous SMEs, pharmaceuticals, agrifood, medtech and financial services. As the Deputy said, however, we cannot be complacent. We have to watch our costs. Ensuring a strong continued pipeline of foreign direct investment is a core objective of this Government and to that end, Ireland’s proposition for foreign direct investment remains competitive. This is demonstrated by the IDA’s results for 2024, which show that Ireland secured 234 investment wins, delivering a record level of research and development investment as IDA clients committed €1.9 billion across 64 investments. These investments are projected to create 13,500 jobs over coming years. The results also show strong balanced regional development throughout 2024 with 59% of the FDI investments in locations outside of Dublin. As a person who comes from rural Ireland and with the Deputy coming from the midlands, it is important that we have regional investment and regional balance in our development.

See this speech in context