I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this very serious matter. While I have great admiration for the Minister of State, Deputy Moffat, it is significant that both the Tánaiste and her Minister of State, who are responsible for jobs, are absent this evening and that the Government has sent a Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children to respond to this debate. I realise that we are discussing the health of industry in Cork but I regret the absence of the Minister responsible for this matter. The Tánaiste is always in evidence when notional jobs, many of which do not come to fruition, are being announced. When jobs are being lost she is conspicuous by her absence. This is not the first time this has happened in relation to job losses in Cork.
Yesterday Cork was shocked again by the news that Liebert, in Model Farm Road, is to close with the loss of 150 jobs. Workers and their families were stunned by this announcement because it follows closely on the loss of 450 jobs in Apple, the announcement of 120 job losses in Bourns Electronics in Mahon and the closure of the Universal Foods factory in Midleton with the loss of between 65 and 170 jobs. These closures mean that Cork will have lost between 800 and 900 industrial jobs in only four weeks. This figure does not include the spin-off jobs which will inevitably be lost as a result of these closures.
The Tánaiste is frequently heard announcing notional jobs, many of which never come to fruition, but she is notably silent when jobs are being lost. When 450 jobs were lost at Apple Computers the Tánaiste came to Cork to address the Cork Chamber of Commerce dinner, the biggest business function of the year in Cork. She hardly uttered a word about the impending disaster of the closure of Apple, something about which she knew.
At a time when the clichéd Celtic tiger is developing its muscles Cork is reeling from four successive industrial body blows. Serious questions must be asked regarding this litany of closures. Were the Tánaiste and the Government forewarned? Did the IDA early warning system operate and, if so, what political intervention has taken place to deal with these problems?
Last evening job losses at the Bourns factory in Cork were discussed on the Adjournment. My colleague, Deputy Stanton, will speak of another closure at Universal Foods. In response to the Adjournment debate yesterday the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Deputy Treacy, trotted out the usual platitudes about promised jobs and projects which have the potential to create 7,000 new jobs. Potential and notional jobs are no consolation to people who are now on the road to unemployment centres. We do not want promises of notional jobs and task forces. We want to know what steps are being taken to protect the existing jobs on which so many Cork workers and their families depend to pay their weekly food bills and high mortgage repayments.
Liebert Corporation, in an announcement last evening, said that the plant in Cork will cease manufacturing on 30 June. A number of technical positions will become available in the company's Italian and Slovakian facilities but all other employees will be declared redundant.
In her absence, I demand that the Tánaiste make personal contact with the principals of the company and make every effort to salvage this critical situation.
