SOME €15 million in funds for the retraining of Dell workers in Ireland should be released by mid-November, Fine Gael MEP Seán Kelly has said.
The European Commission approved the grant to help more than 2,000 former Dell workers retrain for work in September, but its approval has been held up at European Parliament level.
In January, Dell announced it was planning to move its Raheen operation in Limerick to a lower-cost environment in Poland, at a loss of 1,900 jobs. Some 230 jobs were also lost in March from the company’s Cherrywood operation in south Dublin.
Visiting Ireland in September, Commission president José Manuel Barroso said the European Commission had approved an application from Ireland for assistance from the European globalisation adjustment fund.
The €500 million back-to-work scheme is designed to help retrain workers who lose their jobs due to the effects of globalisation. Workers are offered job guidance, support to set up their own business, training and retraining, an internship programme and education allowances and grants.
The total package comes to €23 million, with the Government to put up an extra €8 million.
The final sign-off of the fund for Dell workers was delayed by the Employment and Social Affairs Committee in the European Parliament while members discussed the issue of companies moving from one member state to another in the EU. Mr Kelly said he met with the chairwoman of the committee, French MEP Pervenche Beres, and urged her to fast-track the vote on the Dell money so the funds can be deployed. She told him the vote would take place in Brussels on November 11th.
Mr Kelly also called on the Government to lift the hiring freeze in third-level institutions. “This is stifling the ability of third-level institutions such as Limerick Institute of Technology from developing new courses to retrain Dell workers, as they cannot hire new staff to tackle this emergency, even on a temporary basis.”