The Government would not be taking every possible step towards protecting the futures of MBNA workers if they failed to take the necessary action to access the EU Globalisation Fund as a fall back position.

This was stated by Marian Harkin MEP when she cautioned that without concrete assurance that replacements for the MBNA jobs would be provided in Carrick-on-Shannon the Government had a duty to act in good time to avail of EU Globalisation funds.

She said:- “The delay in concluding negotiations on behalf of the Dell workers in Limerick  resulted in failure to fully utilise available funds with a proportion returned to the EU.  Lessons will, hopefully, have been learned from the Dell experience and the least of these is to prepare the ground which would give workers early access to pre-skilling or project development funding as quickly as possible.

“As the sole Irish member of the European Parliament’s Globalisation Fund Committee, I am currently working on obtaining an extension to the ‘Crisis Derogation’ element of the fund which is due to end in December and which currently affords broader access to EU funds.  If the extension is not obtained it will be vital for no time to be lost in making the case for the Carrick on Shannon workers who are directly and indirectly employed by MBNA if a replacement project is not secured in the near future”.