It may be possible for the Irish Government to apply for funding from the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund (EGF) to assist redundant workers in Newbridge following the announcement of 150 job losses in Newbridge by Pfizer today. This was stated by Independent MEP, Marian Harkin who is the lead negotiator in the European Parliament on the European Globalisation Fund.
Harkin, who drafted the report which sets out the framework for the for the fund post 2014 said "Normally this fund can only be triggered where there are 500 or more redundancies in a nine month period; however there are two other possibilities the Government could use to access the fund for redundant workers in Newbridge.
"First there is a possibility whereby the redundancies have a significant impact on employment in a region and in this situation, the threshold of 500 redundancies is not required. Given that Newbridge has already suffered the loss of 275 jobs from the same plant, plus the downstream jobs those losses entail, over the last 3 years, this has had a huge impact on the locality and could well be the basis for an application.
"These job losses have to be seen in the context of the two announcements from MSD regarding 570 jobs losses in Swords and the announcement last March of 280 job losses in Wicklow in the same sector.
"The second possibility is to try to reach the 500 redundancies threshold within the nine months. Given the redundancy announcements in Swords and Wicklow allied to losses in Little Island in Cork of 177 jobs in Pfizer and all the downstream job losses, it may be possible to exceed the threshold of 500 job losses in this particular sector.
"The fund can be used to help redundant workers to retrain, up-skill or start their own business. The co-financing rate is 60% and Ireland has already had five successful applications, Dell workers in Limerick, Waterford Glass and Talk Talk in Waterford, SR Technics in Dublin and the Construction industry nationwide with funds in excess of€ 67 million having been approved by the EU.
"The Government should immediately commit to assessing the situation and immediately put in place a framework for a fund application", Marian Harkin concluded.
Additional information
1. The Government has made applications for over 50,000 redundant workers since 2006.
2 The amounts provided for workers from the EU have ranged from €2,505 to €9,724.
3. The total amount provided to workers under the EGF, including the Irish Governments contribution of €46 million, is €113 million.
