Maurice Hayes (Independent)

I support the call for a debate on competitiveness and the economy. While I sympathise deeply with people who have lost their jobs, there is an inevitability about this which we must examine. I watched a BBC television programme last night where a female mill worker from Rochdale was brought to Sri Lanka to see where her job had gone. The woman in Sri Lanka was paid £100 per week for work for which the lady in Rochdale had been paid £800. The interesting thing was that the Sri Lankan lady was worried that somebody in China or Malaysia would do the job more cheaply than her.

It brings us back to a debate we should have on the report on skills and upskilling people, which came out yesterday. The two closures which have taken place are regrettable but of the two, the job losses at Thomson Scientific are far more worrying, which is the point made by Senator Finucane. It is the loss of those high-quality jobs which is really worrying for Ireland and something to which we must pay serious attention.