Danny Healy-Rae on BorgWarner closure: 'like Pearl Harbour'

Tanaiste, we have a serious jobs crisis in Kerry and I wish to raise with you today the closure of Barg Warner in Tralee. This bombshell happened a couple of days ago and has really taken the workers in the town of Tralee by real surprise. It was like something akin to the bombing of Pearl Harbour. Tanaiste, I want to thank you for already showing an interest in this serious issue. This amount of jobs, I want to explain to you, if this amount of jobs are being lost and carried, which is a population of roughly 150,000, this would equate to 2,100 or 2,200 jobs in the population of the Greater Dublin Area of one and a half million. So if that happened here, I know that every minister and the Taoiseach would be out doing something about it. Thank you very much. This is an awful blow to the areas where these workers have lived mainly in Tralee, Killarney, Lysdor and Killaridon. These job losses come on top of other job losses, 130 Debenham jobs in Tralee, almost 200 Fexico jobs in Killaridon and Calsavine. Tralee Aquidon is to remain closed until at least next April. This has been a massive attraction and is a serious loss to business in Tralee. The move to cut three race nights from the monthly calendar by the Irish Greyhound Board and relocate them to Calk and Limerick has hurt many dog owners and will certainly hurt business in Tralee. I wish to support the Chamber Alliance's request that when it comes to economic development that Kerry be separated from Calk City as we are and have always been two separate regions and should be treated as such. I ask that we set up an emergency job task force to address the jobs crisis in Kerry and ask that the relevant minister come down to meet the workers and stakeholders in Tralee as soon as possible. I wish to highlight the Calsavine area which is totally void of any creation for many years under successive governments. From Kel station through Calsavine town, right up around the ring to Schneem and Kinmer is now totally dependent on a bit of farming, fishing and tourism. Indeed, when the youngsters go off to college, most never return as there are no jobs to come back to. The only thing the government brought to Calsavine was asylum seekers to an unfit Skelligstar Hotel where we are told now food and water is now being rationed. The Kerry jobs situation has been exasperated by the Greens program for government. We are not now going to have Shannon LNG providing natural gas which was to create between 350 and 500 badly needed jobs in not Kerry. Even though this company has already spent 70 million euro of their own money and we are going to totally fund the project themselves. And we do need the gas for at least a couple more years. Thank you, Deputy. Thanks very much, Deputy, for raising the issue of job losses and employment in Kerry. And as we all know, as a result of what's happened to the economy due to this pandemic, we've seen a major increase in unemployment in the last couple of months. Thankfully, it is falling and people have seen that the number of people on the pandemic unemployment payments which had peaked at over 600,000 is now down below 300,000 and is still falling at about 20 and 30,000 a week. And that's encouraging. In addition to that, over 400,000 people are having their employment sustained through the government's temporary wage subsidy scheme. In relation to BorgWarner, the news of those job losses came as a terrible blow to the staff and also to the town of Tralee. And I have spoken to the IDA about it and I've been in touch by conference call with the company and expressed my disappointment that there wasn't any advance notice of this to any government agency. What they explained to me was that demand for their product is in terminal decline, not related to COVID, and they don't see any future product line for that particular factory. So it does have to close, it'll close by the end of the year, although some people will remain on site until the second quarter of next year. I discussed the whole issue of redundancy and the need to make sure that the workers get a good redundancy package. And they said that would be put in place and they'll negotiate with the representatives about that. And I also asked about the site because the company owns the site and I'd like to see a new company come in there and employ people and bring more employment back into Tralee. And they have agreed to work with the government and work with the IDA to find either a new investor or a buyer for that site so that we can replace some of those jobs, if not all of those jobs, with new jobs, fortunately. And that's what we're working on at the moment. In addition to that, as is always the case, government agencies and supports will click in. The Department of Social Protection will make sure that everyone knows what their rights are if they're losing their job in terms of redundancy and welfare payments. The ETBs will go in, the IT, all of the others will go in to make sure that people are given a whole set of opportunities around alternative employment, education and training. The possibility of a grant to set up a business. All of those things will be offered to the workers so that they know what their options are and their opportunities are separate from the fact that we are going to try to find an alternative investor for the plant. So it's really bad news, not just for the workers affected, but also the impact on the local economy. And I know it comes at a really awful time when people are going into a labour market that is very difficult at the moment. But I can assure the Deputy that the Government and its agencies will do everything we can to help the people who've lost their jobs and also to find alternative employment, fortunately. Thank you very much. I just want to highlight as well in very recent times we've lost 45 jobs in Khmer when jam closed its outlet. The tourism industry, we have lost hundreds of jobs, drivers and buses, pub workers and many others. Tarnas, I asked that he urgently probed the possibility of getting, and you have said you're doing that, but I'm asking to leave no stone and turned in getting Borg Warner or another company to use this very skilled workforce and the facility there. They have many years of experience into the production of some other components like ventilators to deal with the coronavirus and indeed the production of other needed products like air to water pumps which we are importing from Germany and Denmark at the present time. I also want to say that we really value our remaining employers, Liebers, Munster Joinery, Hatties and Cosway and all the other small employers who are vital to the economy of Kerry. Many of our manufacturing jobs have been lost over the years to Eastern Europe and have never been replaced. I'm asking to really look at Kerry and to put in place a new task force to deal with the job situation in crisis in Kerry because we are on our knees, Tarnas, and the court is really suffering. Thanks very much, Lester. Thanks very much, Deputy, and you can be assured that the Government is going to do the best we can and work might and main to find an alternative employer, an alternative investor for that facility. It would be a shame to see it go unused and the company says they will work with us on that, but it would be a new company coming in and probably producing something different. I was talking to Minister Foley about this and Deputy Griffin the other day and we are very keen to put government resources behind Kerry and making sure that it gets its fair share of investment. In the last 10 years, the number of IDA jobs in the county of Kerry has increased by 48%, so very much going in the right direction. That might fall back a bit this year, but I think we can make progress again in the years ahead. And of course, one thing that is going to be absolutely crucial for the county, as we all appreciate, is getting our tourism industry up and running again because it is Ireland's premier county when it comes to tourism. And that's why we took the decisions that we did in the July stimulus package only last week to put in place a stay and spend scheme, which I hope will be useful to the tourist industry in Kerry in the October onwards period, also extending the wage subsidy scheme well into spring of next year and allowing those employers to take on seasonal workers who weren't on the payroll back in February, which is one of the big asks they had. So hopefully we'll start to see some of those jobs coming back. Thank you very much.