Vol. 457 No. 1
166 Mr. M. Ahern asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the decision, if any, that has been made on his Department's application for readaptation aid for the 205 workers made redundant from Irish Steel; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15058/95]
The measure of readaptation aid was formulated by the European Commission to ease the burden of steel workers who have been made redundant under the current restructuring of the steel industry and is administered under Article 56 (2) (b) of the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty. Under the scheme, a worker being classified as taking early retirement (those aged 55 years and over) may receive up to a maximum amount of 4,000 ECU per workers. Those workers that have been made redundant from Irish Steel may receive up to a maximum of 3,000 ECU per workers.
An application was made by my Department on 29 July 1994 under this measure for readaptation aid for 205 workers in Irish Steel Limited. Since that date my Department has supplied full details on each of the Irish Steel workers affected so as to enable the European Commission make a decision as to the eligibility of the workers to receive these payments.
I heard in the past week that the European Commission has declared 194 Irish Steel workers to be eligible under this scheme and a decision as to the amount of aid to be paid to each worker will be made by mid-November at the latest. Notwithstanding the maximum levels per worker stated above, since a finite amount of resources is available under this measure and given that Ireland is not the only member state applying under this measure, the European Commission has signalled that it is most unlikely that each worker affected will receive the maximum levels of readaptation aid.
