1. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment for an update on the steps he is taking to protect jobs in the technological sector; if an audit of job security across the sector has been undertaken; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22001/25]
Sentiment score: 0.21
I wrote to the Minister in March following the announcement of 300 job losses in TikTok to ask whether he would commission an audit of job volatility in the technological sector. As it stands today, almost 5,000 staff at Intel are in limbo following the company's announcement of global cuts of 20% to its workforce. I hope, like the Minister, that all of those jobs will be retained. Has he commissioned an audit of jobs in this sector?
Sentiment score: -0.01
The threat to jobs in Intel and the job losses in TikTok come on the back of job cuts in Meta. There are reports of 300 jobs at risk at Carelon Global Solutions Ireland in Limerick. This company, as the Minister will know, provides digital integrated solutions for the healthcare industry. It has talked about its decision to consider its future in Ireland, which comes after a review of its business operations and an examination of the changing healthcare landscape globally. Is the Minister working with the staff and management at Carelon Global Solutions in this regard? Has he explored alternatives to these proposed layoffs, which would not only be a severe blow to the individual workers but have a huge negative impact in Limerick? While I welcome the semiconductor strategy, I ask for it to be implemented on an all-island basis. There are huge opportunities in the semiconductor space.
Sentiment score: 0.02
There is a real urgency around this. The Minister did not address Carelon Global Solutions and what is being done there. I take it he is in there, talking to staff, and that he has SkillNet Ireland in there as well to work with these companies and to examine available alternatives in the immediate term. The question the Government must answer is where the next decade of jobs is coming from. We need a calm, strategic response in this regard. What we do not need, in this period of economic instability, is to row back on commitments to pension enrolment, wages and sick leave. The staff, as the Minister rightly said, must be front and centre. All of these staff members have families who are living and trying to cope with in the midst of the cost-of-living crisis. We can only create a sustainable economy and society by addressing the core issues, namely, our infrastructure, the deficits in water services, renewable energy and enhancing the communications network.
Sentiment score: 0.02
3. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the reason previous commitments made by the Government on workers’ rights issues are not being honoured; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [22002/25]
Sentiment score: -0.09
The Government made commitments on introducing the living wage, on enhancing paid sick leave entitlements, on abolishing the subminimum rates of youth pay, on increasing the minimum annual remuneration for employment permits and on pension auto-enrolment. The Government has reneged on all of these progressive measures. I know the Minister will say that these are just delayed but the word used is "postponement". Without concrete timeframes, workers fear that "delay" really means "deny".
Sentiment score: -0.28
What I wanted was a firm commitment that the onslaught on ordinary workers would be ended. The Minister of State has not provided me with that. Workers on the minimum wage are looking forward to the living wage, as was committed to. When they hear, in the past week, a wage of €430,000 talked about for a housing tsar to replace the housing Minister, it just does not sit right with people who are in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. The workers here did not cause the global uncertainty and they cannot be made scapegoats for Government failures. The Government cannot use the uncertainty about tariffs as an excuse to row back on promises to workers. Backtracking on the minimum wage commitments does not make economic sense. The sectors that rely heavily on the minimum wage workers are, by and large, not exporters but rather trade domestically.
Sentiment score: 0.03
Going after workers in these sectors will not address our international competitiveness, nor will it help sectors on the front line to deal with the impact of tariffs. All it will do is leave ordinary workers worse off in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. We have one of the highest rates of low pay in the EU, with one in five workers being low paid. This figure has remained relatively unchanged after decades of broken promises from Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Yesterday, the ESRI published research it undertook on behalf of the Low Pay Commission. The findings of this research show that the percentage of minimum wage jobs being advertised is growing. In 2024, 15% of all hourly paid job vacancies were for minimum-wage jobs. There is a huge variation in the incidence of minimum wage employment across the State. In Dublin, approximately 7% of jobs advertised were for minimum wage workers. In Donegal, the figure was 20%. This means that in real terms, workers in Donegal and the west earn less. This obviously has a knock-on effect across the regional economy. The Government's failure to introduce a living wage leaves low-paid workers extremely vulnerable. There are many ways to support businesses but this is not one of them. We are in a race to the bottom here.
Sentiment score: -0.13