Joe Carey (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Question 121: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Question No. 199 of 20 October 2009, if she will confirm the efforts she has made to date in making an application for EU Globalisation Fund assistance for workers who have lost their jobs in the Shannon area and the greater mid-western region particularly in view of recent job losses; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [41836/10]

Seán Haughey (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)
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In December 2009, the application submitted to the European Commission under the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) in June 2009 for assistance in co-financing supports for workers made redundant at the DELL computer manufacturing plant in Raheen and ancillary enterprises in the Mid West region was approved by the EU Budgetary Authority. Some of the redundant workers included for assistance in that EGF application were from the Shannon area and are amongst the 2,600 workers who have directly benefited from supports under the Dell EGF programme. Strict eligibility criteria must be satisfied under the EU EGF Regulation in order for a Member State to make a sustainable application for EGF assistance in respect of redundancies occurring in a particular enterprise or sector. These criteria include inter alia meeting defined minimum redundancy numbers within certain reference periods.

In this context the EGF Regulation stipulates that, in eligibility terms there must have been at least 500 redundancies, over a period of four months, in respect of a single enterprise, its suppliers or downstream producers, or at least 500 redundancies, over a period of nine months, in a specific NACE 2 (economic activity) sector.

In assessing the number of total redundancies made by companies in the Mid-West region in recent months, it is the Department's view that the key criterion of 500 redundancies per enterprise has not been met and hence do not facilitate the making of a sustainable EGF application.

My Department continues to monitor redundancy figures for all enterprises and all sectors nationally with a view to ascertaining whether further sustainable EGF applications can be made, as and where appropriate.