Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 29 June 2023
2. Deputy Ged Nash asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment if he will outline his engagement with the owners of a company (details supplied) and the trade unions at the company; if he will detail the supports he is prepared to provide to assist in avoiding 650 potential layoffs at the operation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31836/23]
View answerThe Minister rightly expressed shock two weeks ago at the plans announced by Tara Mines to put all of its 650 staff at the Navan mine on temporary layoff. Yesterday, a week after proposals were tabled by the unions to avoid mass layoffs, Boliden essentially pressed the button and said it planned to go ahead regardless. Since the announcement two weeks ago, can the Minister inform the House of the precise nature of his engagement with the company and the nature of the supports he is prepared to provide to avoid layoffs?
I thank the Deputy. I would like to have more opportunity to discuss this issue if I could. Maybe we can do that in the next few weeks.
First, I want to say that I know yesterday was another difficult day for all the staff in Tara Mines and my first concern remains for the impacted staff and their families. This includes the 650 staff employed directly by the company in Navan but also staff and companies impacted which have contracts with Tara Mines. There are many people in that position.
My Department, the Department of Social Protection and other relevant Government agencies will support the company and employees in any way we can, including through any income supports that are available through the Department of Social Protection. My Department and I were first informed of the decision of the Boliden Tara Mines board to put the company into care and maintenance on 13 June. I subsequently met with the company management and union representatives, together with my officials, on 15 June. The company informed me that the decision to suspend operations temporarily and place the mine into care and maintenance had been taken to safeguard the long-term future of the company. The company representatives said they were in a very difficult financial position due to a number of factors including a decline in the price of zinc, which has been significant this year, high energy prices and general cost inflation, as well as some other operating challenges which they went into some detail on with me.
Officials from my Department and Enterprise Ireland met again with the company earlier this week to explore options for securing the long-term future of the mine and employment. Yesterday morning, with officials from my Department, I again met with management at the company, who briefed me in some detail on the latest position. Management underlined the constructive engagement they have had with unions since 15 June, which tabled helpful proposals for cost-saving measures to be introduced to address operational challenges. I am also aware that this dialogue will continue and I support that.
I am more than happy to meet the union leadership again in the next couple of days, as soon as tomorrow I hope, if that is what they would like to do. We will continue to engage with management. There are some things we can do, which I can hopefully go into in a second. The union leadership in Tara Mines has shown very significant willingness to propose and think through compromises that can help to save costs in the medium term, and that process needs to continue if we are going to secure a future for Tara Mines.
In the past, SIPTU, Connect and Unite have shown themselves to be extremely flexible and responsible when that company previously hit trading difficulties. They showed their leadership and responsibility again two weeks ago when they started to develop proposals on cost-saving measures. Unfortunately, they were rejected by the company and, extraordinarily, when the trade unions were in negotiations with the company yesterday, at the very same time, workers were receiving emails with regard to the company's plan to introduce those layoffs. We cannot, therefore, say with any confidence that the company was acting in good faith. The missing piece of the jigsaw here is the precise nature of the Government supports the Minister is prepared to provide to the operation. The trade unions have done their piece. There was always an assumption that the Government would introduce supports in association with the work the union has done to avoid and stave off the nuclear option of 650 layoffs. We know, and the Minister has correctly pointed out, that there are already up to 200 people who have been essentially laid off or lost their jobs, in some cases, through contractors.
Could the Minister set out the precise nature of the supports he is prepared to provide? That would be important for clarity in terms of the unions' approach to the issue over the next period. By the way, I do appreciate the Minister's continued engagement with the trade unions and they appreciate that too.
That engagement will continue right the way through this process. Even if it moves into a care and maintenance situation, we want to continue to talk to both the workers' representatives and management to try to make sure that period is as short as possible. It is important to say and put on the record that the management have been really clear with me that they are 100% convinced that this is a temporary care and maintenance situation they are now facing and that Tara Mines can and will open again. I have to take them at face value in terms of that commitment, but I want to make sure that the Government does its part in ensuring that is what happens. If it is not possible to avoid care and maintenance, which, of course, we would all like to avoid if we could, but if care and maintenance happens in a couple of weeks' time, we must make sure that period is as short as possible and that we support the workers and their families as best we can during that.
That is why there are a number of Government Departments and a whole series of agencies involved. For example, Enterprise Ireland is there working with the company to make sure that apprentices in Tara Mines have alternatives quickly so they can continue their apprentice programmes.
Go raibh maith agat.
Enterprise Ireland is also engaging with other companies that are subcontracting, for example, into Tara Mines to try to find alternative work for those companies.
Go raibh maith agat, a Aire.
The Chair might give me a slight bit of latitude and I will finish then. On the core question, certainly, I do not believe that the management has rejected the proposals from the union leadership. What they have said to me is it is not enough in terms of cost savings to be able to avoid moving into care and maintenance for now. Of course, we need then to look at what is possible in terms of state aid in supporting, for example, the company to help compensate for the dramatic increase in energy costs it has experienced over the last 12 months, just like we have done with other companies. Our state aid team is working with that at the moment.
The company stated the obvious when it said the union proposals of themselves would not be sufficient to stave off the scale and quantum of layoffs it is considering at the moment. The assumption always was, based on comments made, for example, by the Taoiseach in this House in recent weeks, that an energy package would be worked on to try to provide some support to the organisation and we await that. If it is the case that the Minister is in discussions and continuing negotiations with the companies and trade unions, I understand why he would not be in a position to disclose the precise nature of the offer of support he has already made, if those offers have been made, at this point.
Mr. Adrian Kane from SIPTU could not have put it clearer this morning. The Minister may have heard him on "Morning Ireland" when he said that a political intervention is required at this stage. In conclusion, I do not believe we would be here at all if the proposition the Labour Party developed in recent years around the introduction of a German-style short-time work scheme based on the Kurzarbeit model was in place to assist companies and workers in organisations experiencing short- to medium-term trading difficulties of this nature.
Last week, the Minister and the Ministers, Deputies Humphreys and Michael McGrath, responded to me by saying that proposition was being considered in the context of a review of the pathways to work strategy. It is all well and good considering it. This is a proposition that has been considered now for a number of years. It should be an important part of our labour market model and embedded in that model to make the kinds of interventions that I believe could stave off the kind of proposition Boliden is considering at the moment.
I hear what the Deputy is saying. With regard to supports in the labour market, of course, the Government is always open to looking at new and more impactful ways of doing things and looking at international best practice and so on.
With regard to Tara Mines, it is important to be upfront about the scale of the financial pressures on the company. The predicted loss for 2023, when the decision was announced a number of weeks ago that the company was going to move into care and maintenance, was approximately €100 million. That is a huge gap to close. The one factor the Government cannot compensate for is the price of zinc, which is the main factor here. What we can do is support the company somewhat to offset the dramatic increase in the cost of energy, which, by the way, is not as dramatic as would have been predicted six months ago. In fact, the cost of energy has come down significantly, but it is still a lot higher than would have been predicted a number of years ago. We can, therefore, do something on energy. There are some limitations in terms of state aid rules and the schemes that exist but certainly, we cannot close that kind of gap. Despite really significant efforts by the trade unions to find ways of improving productivity and reducing cost, about which the management has been very complimentary to me, by the way, and they are very helpful, that conversation needs to continue in the context of finding a viable future for this plant.
All I can say is that the Government will prioritise this issue. I will prioritise this issue and we will continue to speak to the trade unions and management honestly about how far the State can go in the context of the state aid rules we have to operate within.
