Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Question 103: To ask the Tánaiste and Minister for Education and Skills the possibility of securing funding through the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund for the staff of a company (details supplied), whose employees were made redundant in December 2009 when the company relocated to Larnaca, Cyprus; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [43105/10]

Mary Coughlan (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)
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To allow an EU Member State to make a sustainable application for EGF assistance in respect of redundancies occurring in a particular enterprise or sector, strict eligibility criteria must be satisfied under the European Globalization Adjustment Fund Regulation (EGF).

These criteria include meeting defined minimum redundancy numbers within certain reference periods. In this context, the current EGF Regulation stipulates that 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 NACE 2 (economic activity) sector.

The EGF Regulation in force until 30 April 2009 stipulated a minimum number of redundancies of 1,000 in both of these scenarios. Provided that all relevant eligibility conditions have been met, an EU member state has 10 weeks within which to submit an EGF application.

The redundancies in question did not meet the requirements of the EGF Regulation under a number of criteria. Hence, no EGF application was possible in this case.

My Department continues to monitor redundancy figures for all sectors nationally with a view to making further sustainable EGF applications as and where appropriate.