Vol. 465 No. 8
92 Mr. D. Ahern asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment if he will have arrangements made to establish a trust fund to allow for further education and retraining of employees of Keytronic Europe, Dundalk, County Louth, to enable them to successfully compete for new job vacancies; if he will endeavour to involve Keytronic and State agencies in the establishment of this trust fund; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10681/96]
93 Mr. D. Ahern asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the plans, if any, he has to establish a task force for the Dundalk area of County Louth in order to address the recent job losses in Harris Ireland and Keytronic Europe; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10682/96]
I propose to take Questions Nos. 92 and 93 together.
I am confident that the existing network of State agencies is working well in coping with the situation at both the Keytronic and Harris facilities in Dundalk.
IDA-Ireland and FÁS will work together in undertaking a skills survey to ascertain the level of staff retraining required. Also, FÁS will work with Keytronic in its Dundalk facility in the registration of workers. Indeed all FÁS services will be available and these will be free of charge. Therefore, a trust fund would not be necessary.
It would not be an effective use of the resources of the State agencies to establish a task force to advise on the appropriate type of response to each and every closure of a plant. It would be particularly ineffective to do so if the recommendations of another contemporary task force provide, as I hope those of the Tallaght Task Force will, an acceptable guide as to the appropriate responses to such situations in general.
