Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael)
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Question 83: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of taskforces that have been created by her Department in the past five years; the recommendations of the taskforce created in the aftermath of the announcement of a company (details supplied) to close; and if she will make a statement on her Department's attempts to organise EU funding for the Limerick and south Tipperary area. [29390/09]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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The Mid-West Task Force is the first such task force in the last five years. For some years a range of co-ordinated structures have been in place at regional level, through arrangements such as those for the National Spatial Strategy, County Development Boards and enterprise agency co-ordination, and recent regional industrial development issues have more often been addressed through these structures than through Task Forces.

The Mid-West Task Force, which I established under the Chairmanship of Mr. Denis Brosnan, has now completed an interim report. The report was presented to me by Mr. Brosnan on 2 July and is currently being considered by Government.

At the time Dell announced on 8 January last its intention to reduce its workforce by 1,900 at its plant in Limerick, I also established a group of the relevant State agencies to prepare for a major job loss situation. Since then, FÁS has had in place a Mid West team to specifically deal with the needs of workers made redundant in Dell and other companies in the Region.

At the same time, IDA, Enterprise Ireland and Shannon Development have been working diligently to secure new investments for the region. During the past year companies like Vistakon, Zimmer, Intel, Cook, DTS and Microsemi have had announcements in the Mid West. Further agency-supported investments are currently under consideration and the agencies will continue to do everything possible to speed up such development in the region.

I submitted an application to the European Commission on 19 June 2009 under the European Globalisation Fund (EGF) seeking co-financing assistance for jobsearch, training and education supports for workers being made redundant at the DELL plant in Limerick, and in other local companies that have experienced consequential redundancies.

The EGF application must be assessed by Commission experts and thereafter approved by the full European Commission whereupon it will be forwarded for sanction for payment of the approved level of co-financing to the European Council and the European Parliament. This process will take some months to complete in full.

The amount of funding to be allocated from the Fund will be decided by the European Commission, while the final amount accruing to the Exchequer will be determined by the numbers availing of training under the scheme.