The opportunity exists for the Government to apply for funding from the EU Globalisation Adjustment Fund to support workers made redundant in the Border, Midlands, and West region and that application should be made without delay. This was stated by Marian Harkin MEP who has initiated contacts with the BMW Regional Assembly and the Tánaiste on the matter.
“I have been in contact with the BMW Regional Assembly on the matter on a number of occasions and they are analysing the number of lay-offs in the BMW region over the last nine months in order to see if certain workers will qualify for support under the Globalisation Fund,” she said.
“As the only Irish member on the European Globalisation Adjustment Fund Working Group in the Parliament, I am acutely aware of how other countries are using this fund to help redundant workers. Recently in the working group we received an application for redundant workers in the construction industry in the Netherlands and I would be very surprised if we don’t have at least 500 redundancies in this sector in the BMW region in the last nine months. So far the Irish Government have made three applications for the fund – Dell, SR Technics, and Waterford Glass. While all of these workers are fully deserving, it is worth noting that no application has been made for the BMW region, despite the significant number of redundancies there.
“There may be an impression that it is only when there is a massive lay off like Dell that an application can be made to the fund but this is not the case. If there are more than 500 redundancies in a number of different companies, qualification for the fund exists provided the redundancies are in a specific sector. They could for example be in construction, pharmaceuticals, textiles, engineering, etc, and as long as they occur within a nine month period then an application can be made.
“I am hopeful that by this weekend we will have figures collected in the different sectors in the BMW region which will serve as the basis for assistance from the EU Globalisation Adjustment Fund and that the Government will take steps to apply to the fund as a matter of urgency,” Marian Harkin concluded.
