Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 27 May 2014
342. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he will provide details of the auction of equipment and stock at Lufthansa Technic in County Dublin which took place in May following the closure of the plants and compulsory redundancy of the staff. [22989/14]
View answer343. Deputy Mary Lou McDonald asked the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation if he will provide details of all state aid and support provided to Lufthansa Technic in County Dublin since the plant opened; and if the State will be reimbursed for any of this aid from the auction of equipment and stock that took place this month. [22990/14]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 342 and 343 together.
The contents of the former Lufthansa Technik plant at Rathcoole, County Dublin are the property of the owners and neither my Department nor the IDA had any stake or involvement in this recent sale of that equipment. Accordingly, as this disposal and consequent dispersal of material was solely a matter for the company, it was a private commercial transaction, in respect of which the State had no role.
Since its establishment in 1980, Lufthansa Technic received payments totalling €10,746,827 in grant assistance from IDA Ireland over that 34 year period. The company complied with the grant liability process attaching to the grants they received and did not owe any monies at the time of the announcement of the closure of the Rathcoole site.
There are currently 60 people working on site and this will be reduced over the next 6 weeks to full closure at the end of next month. This closure is very much regretted. Every effort was made by the State to safeguard this operation, including by myself personally and through intensive engagement by the IDA, but the decision to close was a commercial decision by the parent company, in light of the difficult global business environment they were facing.
