Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton said today he had directed IDA Ireland and other agencies to draw a jobs action plan for the South East as UK telecom firms, Talk Talk refused to defer its plan to close its Waterford call centre next month with the loss of 575 jobs.
Mr Bruton travelled to Waterford today where he met both management and employee representatives at TalkTalk but he was unable to persuade the company to row back on its plan to close within 30 days to allow IDA Ireland a better opportunity to find a replacement industry.
Mr Bruton said it was regretable that TalkTalk had not agreed to provide an extension of time but said the Government had to accept this and that was why he had directed IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, local enterprise boards and other support agencies to prepare a South East Action Plan within the next month.
The number of job losses in Waterford in recent years including the imminent closure of TalkTalk meant that the area was a priority for the Government in terms of seeking new investment and the South East Action Plan would help identify why Waterford had failed to attract as much inward investment as other areas, he said.
IDA Ireland Chief Executive, Barry O'Leary said that the agency had secured agreement with TalkTalk to retain a handful of staff to maintain the site at the IDA Ireland Industrial Estate on the Cork Road as a call centre until January to facilitate the IDA in trying to sell it as a suitable site for any new call centre business.
He said that the agency had already had a number of site visits earlier this year from investors seeking to set up an English speaking call centre operation in Waterford and those discussions were continuing but TalkTalk's insistence on closing the site within 30 days made it difficult for the agency to secure a new operator so quickly.
Mr O'Leary said that while it was unusual for a company to close so quickly, it wasn't possible for the IDA to recoup its investment in TalkTalk but he pointed out that IDA grant aid to TalkTalk and its predecessor, AOL was small compared to the €15-20 million that the company contributed annually to the local economy.
Both Mr Bruton and Mr O'Leary defended IDA Ireland's record in the south-east in recent years but local Fine Gael TD, John Deasy said that the South East Action Plan proposed by Mr Bruton would amount to nothing unless it addressed problems with the IDA's operation in Waterford and the status of Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT).
Mr Deasy said that he had meetings with seven of the top companies in Waterford recently and all were critical of the support they received from IDA Ireland who had downgraded their regional office in Waterford ten years ago and that systemic structural changes were necessary to the IDA's operation in the South East.
While Mr Bruton played down the importance of granting WIT university status, Mr Deasy said he believed there was opposition to the move at Cabinet level despite it being part of the Fine Gael/Labour programme for Government and until that was addressed, Waterford would continue to suffer in its bid to attract foreign investment.
Mr Bruton earlier supported a call by TalkTalk employee representatives for the company to offer the same seven weeks per year of service redundancy package given to 50 staff in 2010 rather than the four weeks per year of service package which the company is offering the 575 employees set to lose their jobs next month.
Employee representative, Tom Phelan also called on the government to make
it a statutory requirement for any company to give 90 days notice – as is the case in the UK – than the 30 days currently on the statute here to give a better chance to both workers to find alternative jobs and state agencies to find replacement industries.