David Cullinane (Sinn Fein)

I welcome the Minister of State. To give some background to tabling of this subject for discussion, in 2007 the former Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment had a discussion about unemployment black spots, and a former member of the Lower House, Arthur Morgan, asked that a cross-party delegation of that committee travel to such areas. The areas chosen included west Waterford and east Cork, and the group visited the town of Dungarvan. The visit was made on 21 and 22 January 2008 and the group then published a report, which made a number of recommendations, including the provision of enterprise supports, incubation units to be supported by the IDA, and broadband infrastructure. One of the key points made in the report was about the need for a university in the south east and the requirement for Waterford IT to be elevated to university status to allow the region the opportunity to compete with other regions and countries. One of the critical aspects of this was the requirement for a greater emphasis on research and development and for Waterford IT to be in the top tier of research and development universities.

Dungarvan town has seen many job losses over the last number of years, including at Waterford Foods, Pfizer, the leather factory and Waterford Crystal. Today an announcement was made by GlaxoSmithKline in Dungarvan, a key plant in the town, that 130 jobs are to go. The number of jobs being lost is really 145 because 15 positions will be lost by what they call natural wastage. These jobs are of fundamental importance to the town of Dungarvan, as is the factory itself, socially and economically. We can add to this the cost of all of the other jobs that have been lost. I express my sympathies to the families who will be the victims. It is awful whenever a person loses his or her job.

What are the Minister's intentions on foot of the recommendations made by the all-party Oireachtas committee that the State and the Government should take action and give support to towns such as Dungarvan to prevent job losses and encourage enterprise development? We must make sure that those in towns such as Dungarvan or Youghal in Cork have the same opportunities as those in the bigger cities and are not left behind. When the all-party group travelled to Dungarvan in 2008, there were 170,000 people in this State out of work; there are now 460,000. In Dungarvan town alone there are 2,497 people currently out of work. If we add 130 more to this figure we can see how devastating this is for the town.

What action has been taken up to now on foot of the recommendations made in the report? What action does the Department intend to take to deliver on the recommendations? What action will the Government take to deal with the job losses at GlaxoSmithKline? Given that there are still 600 people working in the plant, we must ensure those jobs are protected. I ask the Minister to respond to the bad news that came from Waterford today about the 130 job losses.