I wish to share my time with Deputy Chris Flood.
Adjournment Debate. - Ministerial Contacts with Tallaght (Dublin) Company.
That is agreed.
I welcome the opportunity to raise the issue of ministerial contacts with Packard Electric on the Adjournment. The efforts to resolve the difficulties in Packard Electric over the past year have not been helped by a lack of clear information. Following the frenzied comings and goings at the end of 1994 and the beginning of 1995 an agreement was reached in June 1995. However, it was very unclear in regard to the problems it resolved. At that time I highlighted the lack of information given to the workers and the deliberate obscuring of important facts. The arrangement was that people who had been let go would now be told whether they would be re-employed. However, the brief statement issued today was ominous. What have the Minister and the Minister of State been doing in the nine months since last June with regard to meeting Packard Electric, either internationally or domestically? What arrangements have been made in the employment protection unit, which was set up to deal with these issues? What steps were taken in that period to ensure the best possible employment arrangement for Packard Electric workers? I am not confident that a strong committed approach was taken. I understand the Minister met management today to discuss the matter. What arrangements were thrashed out? What arrangements has the Minister made with the Packard Electric workers? What is the outlook for that firm on which so many depend for a living?
So many pinned their hopes on what seemed last June to be a better deal. I expressed grave reservations about the lack of clarity at that time and I hope the Minister's reply will contain better news. It is important that the arrangements being put in place now for the workers will be clear.
There is equally unhappy news about Jacobs, also sited in Tallaght, and the redundancies which it hopes will be voluntary. That remains to be seen. I take no satisfaction in saying it is an unhappy day for that region. We must all seek to salvage the best we can but the dignity of the workers demands there be proper information. I want to hear what efforts have been made over the past nine months to secure these jobs.
I thank Deputy O'Rourke for sharing her time with me on this most important matter and I thank the Minister for attending. He knows the situation in Tallaght as well as I do since we both represent the area. What we are confronted with today is a great catastrophe in terms of potential job losses. Neither Deputy O'Rourke nor I wants to talk up the crisis but to tackle a crisis we must recognise it exists, as it does in the Tallaght area, where two substantial employers face considerable difficulties in retaining their current job numbers. That Jacobs is intending to shed up to 200 jobs is serious. Although the departure of these workers may be on a voluntary basis, the jobs are lost to the greater Tallaght area nevertheless.
A similar situation pertains at Packard Electric. Its workers tell me when they visit my home and clinics that no matter what they do, no matter how much they have given in the past in terms of longer hours, revised work practices, redundancies, etc., nothing seems to be enough for Packard Electric's management. The workers feel genuinely hard done by and let down by management practices.
There is confusion in the minds of the workers as to how the issue of redundancies will be handled. They do not want redundancies but that is the prospect they appear to be facing. Their concern is that nothing has been spelled out clearly to the workers or their representatives.
That is the crisis which faces Tallaght. It involves what is likely to happen, and which one hopes will not happen, in Packard Electric and Jacobs. Over the past two years or so, the greater Tallaght area has not obtained a single large industrial job creating development. This concerns all of us who represent and have the interests of Tallaght at heart.
I thank both Deputies for raising this important matter. I wish to inform the House that I and my colleague, Minister Richard Bruton, have had a meeting this morning with the company at its request. The company outlined to us that, in accordance with the agreement entered into in June 1995, it was meeting the unions today to advise them, first, of the business prospects for 1996 and, second, about the situation in relation to employees currently on layoff. I will remind the House that the relevant sections of the company-union agreement brokered last June by Minister Bruton and me are as follows and, contrary to the impression sought to be given by Deputy O'Rourke, could not be more clear.
The Company will advise the Unions by 15 March 1996:
(a) of business prospects for 1996. If prospects are such that a majority of those laid off will be re-engaged over the first half of 1996, no redundancies will take effect until 1 June, in accordance with previous practice.
(b) if business prospects at 15 March indicate that a majority will continue on layoff over the first half of 1996, then a phased redundancy programme, again in accordance with previous practice, will be on offer from 15 April for those on layoff for whom a return to work date has not been determined.
(c) In the case of either (a) or (b) above, the period of layoff will be included in reckonable service for redundancy calculation and minimum notice calculation purposes.
The company has reiterated its commitment to increasing the competitiveness of the Tallaght plant, but it has pointed out that business prospects for 1996 remain poor and, accordingly, it intends to implement a redundancy programme. In accordance with the June agreement, details of the programme, including its impact on the 400 workers on layoffs, will be communicated to the employees by 15 April 1996. The company was not in a position to advise us or the unions as to how many employees were likely to be involved in the redundancy programme. No Minister has control over what a private company decides to tell its workers.
There is no point in pretending to the House that the situation in the company is not extremely serious. Clearly efforts to obtain new business and to improve the competitiveness of the Tallaght plant need to be vigorously pursued and the earlier there is clarity about future plans, the better.
At our meeting this morning we stressed the necessity for the company to observe scrupulously the June agreement. I would now strongly urge both the company and the unions to adhere to the terms of that agreement so that the combined energies of both workers and management are devoted to the core objective of securing the future of the plant.
I am acutely aware that whatever number of redundancies is eventually agreed, it will be a painful experience for those who become unemployed in the circumstances. There is no doubt that the recent history of the Tallaght plant has been deeply troubled, as Deputy Flood said. There is no point at this stage in tracing that history. However, if it were not for the frenzied comings and goings to which Deputy O'Rourke referred, the plant would have shut. Their purpose was to avoid that closure. I would hope that with good will on all sides negotiations between management and unions will secure the future of the plant.
Reference has been made to the situation at the adjacent Jacobs plant. There is the unwelcome news at Jacobs of the loss over a period of three years of some 200 jobs. That is to be regretted but it is important to draw a clear distinction here. The case of Jacobs involves a major investment programme of in excess of £25 million pounds, the modernisation of the plant, the implementation of new technology with a capacity to boost output with fewer workers, the guarantee, in so far as anything is guaranteed in the economy, that the future of the plant is assured and the secure employment for the workforce in that plant. I am satisfied from my discussions with the management of the Jacobs plant that there is the real, and I would like to think definite, prospect of an agreement with the different unions which represent the workers there on a voluntary severance programme which will be implemented and that the plant will go from strength to stength.
The Dáil adjourned at 5.20 p.m. until 2.30 p.m. on Tuesday, 26 March 1966.