Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Question 80: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the action she has taken, following the agreement (details supplied) by the European Council meeting of December 2005, to endorse the proposal for a European Globalisation Adjustment Fund to ensure that the thousands of Donegal workers who lost their jobs in the textile industry would benefit from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund. [35827/09]

Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)
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Question 81: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if the thousands of Donegal workers who lost their jobs in the textile industry are not now eligible for support under the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund; the specific interventions she proposes to undertake in that county to compensate for the loss of this support. [35828/09]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 80 and 81 together.

The European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) entered into force on 1st January 2007. Strict eligibility criteria, both under the original 2006 EU Regulation and its amendment this year, apply before an application can be made by a Member State. Given that the objective of the EGF is to react quickly and effectively to large-scale redundancies occasioned by globalisation factors, this includes the requirement that an application must be made within 10 weeks of the date on which the relevant conditions are met and which have resulted in job losses of the requisite number under the Regulation. The initial threshold was 1,000 but now it has been halved to 500.

The majority of the job losses experienced in the textile sector in County Donegal pre-dated the entry into force of the EGF Regulation and, accordingly, no application in relation to them was possible by reference to the governing conditions of the Fund. However, all State funded supports for workers affected by redundancy at the time were provided nationally through State agencies such as FÁS and Enterprise Ireland, as well as through the vocational and further education sectors.