I thank you Sir, for allowing me to raise once again, the factory closures in my constituency – this time the closure of the Schiesser plant in Clonmel. Friday's announcement of 150 job losses in the Schiesser plant in Clonmel was devastating news for the town and south Tipperary as a whole. Although it may be of little comfort, I join in solidarity with the workers who will shortly leave the factory for the last time. These job losses are particularly heart-breaking because south Tipperary has suffered a litany of factory closures in recent times. The effect of the massive job losses associated with the closure of companies such as Tambrands, Digital, Seagate and many others is still impacting on many hundreds of families throughout the county of Tipperary.
Despite the fact that the job task force set up to find replacement industries has had some success, it will take further massive inward investment to re-employ the hundreds of people who lost their jobs through recent devastating closures. For many people living in south Tipperary, the litany of closures is more reminiscent of the depressed era of the 1980s than the roaring late 1990s and the Celtic tiger. South Tipperary needs specific and special treatment to deal with the scale of job losses in recent times.
The people who are being let go from Schiesser must be assured of their future. Many of the workers have expressed concern that they may not have the interview skills or the relevant qualifications to compete for new jobs because, for many of them, Schiesser has been their only job. Others have suggested that their age may come against them as they try to re-enter the jobs market. I call for assurances from the Government to ease the fears which have been expressed to me in recent days by the devastated workforce of Schiesser.
A task force must be appointed as a matter of urgency to deal with the needs of the workers at the Clonmel plant. Skills assessments need to be carried out, specific training must be provided which is relevant to the needs of the workers and new replacement jobs must be found. I call on the company, which provided quality jobs in its time with good pay and conditions, to ensure that the factory premises which it is vacating will be made available through the IDA to potential investors.
In terms of finding replacement employment, I point out the need to create a good mix of employment opportunities deriving from multinational investment and indigenous industry. Over the past number of years, often there has been an over-emphasis on creating jobs through inward foreign investment. While most of these jobs have helped the economy to grow, the closure of some foreign multinationals has had a crippling effect on local towns and communities.
Clonmel in particular has suffered an over-reliance on multinationals and foreign companies. Some people who became unemployed following the closure of Digital regained employment when Seagate opened. However, they have since become unemployed again. Unemployment has a devastating effect not only on individual workers who lose their jobs but also on their families and local communities. The depth of this devastation is much worse when a community is repeatedly forced to come to terms with unemployment.
Any task force which the Minister of State may set up as soon as possible should help the redundant workers at Schiesser's plant. This should be given the remit of drawing in a mix of indigenous and foreign replacement industries. If all our eggs are put in one basket, Clonmel will never recover and regain its thriving independence. I am concerned that the jobs record in Tipperary south in recent times may act as a deterrent to young people settling in the area. While the live register figures for the entire country appear to be on a consistent downward trend, Tipperary's separate figures indicate worrying upward blips.
Clonmel and the other major towns of south Tipperary, including Carrick-on-Suir, Tipperary town, Cashel and Cahir, are all interdependent. They do not want the rug to be pulled out from under them. The people of Tipperary want to benefit from the economic boom that is evident everywhere else. They want to enjoy those fruits for some time to come. The workers from Schiesser do not want to join the dole queue and fear that they may never work again unless the Minister of State and the Government take a special interest in their case.
