Vol. 470 No. 4
32 Mr. Callely asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the total number of job losses since January 1995; the companies, including State and semi-State companies, which have reduced their workforces, reduced production or shut down their operations; if his attention has been drawn to any proposals for additional job losses and redundancies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19121/96]
The Forfás 1995 employment survey relates mainly to manufacturing industry and internationally traded services, has been published and shows that 14,000 jobs were lost while 24,000 jobs were created leaving a net gain of 10,000 additional jobs in these sectors. As regards 1996, notified redundancies for the first nine months of this year amounted to just over 10,000.
On the question of job losses generally, the Deputy will be aware from my earlier reply to Deputy O'Rourke that my Department has an early warning system, which is kept under review, and aims to identify as early as possible firms in difficulty. This allows appropriate assistance to be offered to help address those difficulties and thereby do our utmost to try and maintain existing jobs. However, as information about companies in difficulty comes to my Department's attention confidentially and often contains commercially sensitive information it is not possible, as the Deputy will understand, for me to provide the information sought on individual companies. Decisions by companies to reduce their workforces, production or shut down operations are ultimately the responsibility of the companies themselves.
As regards job losses generally, I would refer the Deputy to a detailed reply which I gave his colleague, Deputy Mary O'Rourke on Wednesday, 25 September 1996 (Official Report Vol. 469, No. 1 col. 432 and 433).
