Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael)

Last Friday we had a surreal experience in a local hotel in Cavan. In one room a lovely young couple were celebrating their marriage, while in another hundreds of young people were being told they were going to lose their jobs with Quinn Insurance Limited. It was a dark day for County Cavan and the whole region. Some 900 jobs are at stake around the country, of which 226 are in Cavan town. For every job lost, there will be three indirectly associated job losses. I ask the Leader to arrange a long debate very soon on the issue, as it is the most pressing matter confronting the Seanad. My party leader, Deputy Kenny, met the workers yesterday. The scenes and the workers' personal testimonies were harrowing. They want subsidisation of jobs in the short term and the immediate reopening of commercial business.