Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 13 Feb 2001

Vol. 530 No. 3

Written Answers. - Job Losses.

Pat Rabbitte

Question:

65 Mr. Rabbitte asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the number of redundancies in County Donegal notified to her Department in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000; the number in 2001 to date; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3627/01]

Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (Ms Harney)

The number of redundancies in Donegal that were notified to my Department since January 1997 are as follows:

1997	317
1998	383
1999	1,161
2000	783

Twenty one redundancies were notified for the month of January 2001.

A substantial number of the job losses for 1999 and 2000 were accounted for by redundancies in Fruit of the Loom International Limited as well as, to a lesser extent, in other companies such as Jaybee Limited. To offset the impact of job losses in Donegal and to establish it as a prime location for job creation, the Donegal County Develop ment Board has been given responsibility for implementation of the recommendations of the report of the Donegal employment initiative, which was presented to the Government on 14 July 1999. The board consists of representatives of all the industrial promotional agencies in the area as well as the elected representatives and the social partners.

To date, it has been successful in providing a FÁS one-to-one quality registration interview with all redundant workers. Retraining to enhance employment prospects has been given to most of these workers as well as assistance in preparing CVs and in availing of job opportunities arising in the area and notified to FÁS. Arising from the report, both Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland, the development agencies for which I have responsibility, have reorganised their Donegal based services.

IDA Ireland is actively endeavouring to increase the Objective One region's share of jobs in greenfield projects from 25% at present to 50%. Furthermore, Enterprise Ireland has recently articulated a clear regional development mission from which areas like Donegal can expect to benefit, and will be devoting greater resources to boosting the indigenous sector.