asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he will state what provision it is intended to make for clerical workers employed on the staff of Fuel Importers, Limited, at Drogheda on the cessation of their employment with that firm.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Drogheda Employees of Fuel Importers, Limited.
All the State-sponsored companies have already been requested to give special consideration to any applications for employment that may be received from redundant workers of Fuel Importers, Limited. I cannot see my way to ask them to give any particular preference to the members of the company's staff who work at Drogheda.
Is the Minister aware that some of the staff in Drogheda are people who were employed originally in Dublin and who were shifted to Drogheda when the winding up process in respect of the company's operations commenced? Would that affect the Minister's approach to the matter?
I do not want to give preferential treatment or to be put in the position of giving preferential treatment, but I can assure the Deputy that every effort that could possibly be made to secure alternative employment for those who lost their employment with Fuel Importers, Limited, has been made, and made very successfully, I am glad to say. I got full co-operation not merely from the Civil Service but from all the State or semi-State bodies concerned.
If I assure the Minister that the number of cases involved is very small—not more than two or three—would the Minister agree that, where men had been shifted from the clerical staff in Dublin to Drogheda, sympathetic consideration should be given to them?
If the Deputy will give me any particulars he has, I shall look into the matter.
I should like to know if the pooling arrangement which operated earlier, in order to make redundant employees in Fuel Importers, Limited, and other semi-State concerns available to other Government Departments, is still operating, and if the Minister would bear in mind that there are still members of the clerical staff in the Dublin branch of Fuel Importers, Limited, who are idle and not employed in Drogheda or elsewhere?
So far as it is possible to keep them working and so far as it is humanly possible to secure alternative employment for them, everything is being done.