Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 16 January 2013
225. Deputy Joe Higgins asked the Minister for Education and Skills following the disbursement of the European Globalisation Fund to workers made redundant from Dell in Limerick in 2009 the number of those workers that benefitted from that fund to the extent of accessing courses and starting new businesses; of those who started new businesses the number they managed to employ and finally the number of the workers that remain on the live register. [1309/13]
Amharc ar fhreagraSome 2,622 redundant workers at the Dell computer manufacturing plant at Raheen, Co. Limerick and at a number of ancillary enterprises received supports under the EGF co-financed programme of assistance. Of these beneficiaries, 1,583 received supports in the areas of training, third level education or business start-ups. In total, 191 persons who were assisted under the programme moved into self-employment and, at the time of the making of the Final Report on the programme to the European Commission in December 2011 a total of 206 persons were employed in those assisted businesses.
My Department is not responsible for Live Register statistics. However, my Department undertook an exercise in consultation with the Department of Social Protection in order to assess the unemployment rate amongst the cohort of EGF Dell programme beneficiaries as at June 2012, one year after the programme finished. This exercise estimated that, at that time, the number of beneficiaries who were unemployed stood at 812.
