A HIGH-LEVEL group on employment established in late 2008 by the Government met only once before being subsumed into another Cabinet committee, the Department of Enterprise confirmed yesterday.
The group on the labour market was created under the national pay agreement Towards 2016 in autumn 2008 and was chaired by Taoiseach Brian Cowen’s own department. It included representatives of all the social partners as well as senior departmental officials.
Minister for Enterprise Batt O'Keeffe was unable to confirm the status of the group when questioned on RTÉ's Morning Irelandyesterday while discussing planned job losses at Pfizer pharmaceuticals.
Mr O’Keeffe said he thought the high-level group had been subsumed by the Cabinet committee on economic renewal.
His spokesman later confirmed this was so. He added: “The Minister is less interested in taskforces per se and more interested in getting on with implementing Government policy which will create the conditions conducive to job creation.”
However, Fine Gael and Labour both rounded on the Minister for not knowing whether or not the main taskforce on employment was still in existence. They also criticised the fact that the group met only once, in January 2009, when jobless rates were escalating from a low of 4 per cent to almost 14 per cent.
Fine Gael’s spokesman on enterprise Leo Varadkar claimed the Minister was not on top of his brief. “I know Minister O’Keeffe is still fresh in the job, but with 785 job losses announced at Pfizer and 430,000 people signing on, you would hope he would be familiar with the Government’s own groups on unemployment.”
Mr O’Keeffe’s spokesman responded by saying Mr Varadkar would “be better spending his time developing fresh job policy ideas rather than issuing provocative press releases”.
Speaking earlier, Mr O’Keeffe said the Government was hopeful that buyers could be found for the Pfizer plants which were scheduled to close.
Up to 785 people will lose their jobs in Ireland after the pharmaceuticals group announced a fundamental restructuring of its manufacturing business which will mean 6,000 job cuts worldwide.
The job cuts had been signalled by Pfizer as far back as January last year when it first made its bid to acquire Wyeth.
Alan O’Leary of Siptu in Cork said that it was important that Pfizer was supported in its efforts to find buyers for its plants at Loughbeg and Shanbally in Cork which it planned to close over the next three years and its plant in Dún Laoghaire which was due to close by 2015.
“While obviously the news is not very good for people and there’s a cloud of uncertainty for the workers there, I think it’s important to say there’s a bit of time for this company to sell these plants and it has happened in the past.
"We would be calling on the Government to use whatever means it can to support the sale – I don't think this is about retraining, I think it's about securing as many jobs as possible," Mr O'Leary told the Neil Prendeville Showon Cork's 96FM.
On Tuesday, Pfizer Ireland vice-president Dr Paul Duffy said the closure of the Shanbally plant – which employed 75 people – would take place in 2013 while the closure of the tablet plant at Loughbeg with the loss of 225 jobs would take place in 2012.
Yesterday, Mr O’Leary pointed out that the workers in Pfizer had been in a similar position two years ago when the company sought buyers for its plant at Inchera in Little Island and another plant at Loughbeg with mixed success.
The company was unable to find a buyer for the Inchera plant which closed with the loss of 180 jobs, but it had been able to sell its other plant at Loughbeg to Hovione which had employed some 70 of the 160 staff left when it closed.
Mr O’Leary said that it was important to remember that despite the loss of some 300 positions in Cork, Pfizer remains a significant employer in the Cork area, employing over 700 people.
“I don’t believe this is about Pfizer making a fundamental decision to get out of Ireland and we will be doing everything in our power to make sure that we can try and minimise the effect of the jobs losses.”