Opposition calls on Harney to act over 3Com jobs

The Opposition has called on the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, to intervene after reports of 600 job losses at 3Com in Blanchardstown…

The Opposition has called on the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, to intervene after reports of 600 job losses at 3Com in Blanchardstown.

Labour Party finance spokeswoman Ms Joan Burton, who is a TD for the area, said the job losses would be "disastrous".

"3Com represented much of the emergence of the Celtic Tiger in west Dublin in the early 1990s. . . . These redundancies will affect hundreds of families, many of them young couples with children and mortgages," she said.

She called for Ms Harney's intervention to obtain re-training and re-employment for those affected.

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Fine Gael senator Ms Sheila Terry echoed Ms Burton's concern for those made redundant and said that costs and the areas infrastructure deficit led to the jobs losses. She called for the Tánaiste to set up a task force to tackle the issue.

"This is a devastating blow to the workers, their families and the entire Dublin 15 area. The fact that 3Com has apparently blamed the losses on the high cost ofmanufacturing in Ireland comes as no surprise, given the Fianna Fáil/PD Government's failure to tackle this problem.

"I am concerned that the appalling infrastructure in Dublin 15 could also have contributed to these job losses. Even the Tánaiste had earlier admitted that the lack of infrastructure in Dublin 15 could have serious consequences," Ms Terry said.

The Green Party leader, Mr Trevor Sargent said the Government now needs to shift from its "over-reliance" on foreign Investment and focus on funding and supporting the home grown enterprise sector.

"The Government must stop playing PR games with people's lives and get serious about building local economies and supporting the home grown enterprise sector," he said. "Foreign investors are voting with their boardroom feet as rising inflation, housing shortages, traffic gridlock and extortionate insurance costs outweigh the low corporation tax package which has been the Government's sole plan for job creation."

"It is now clear that current Government policies are failing to stem the increasing tide of job losses in Irish industry.