Government Will Support Redundant Waterford Workers

Every effort will be made by the Government to find new jobs for hundreds of Waterford Crystal employees facing redundancy, Minister for Finance Brian Cowen has told the Dáil.

Tánaiste Mr Cowen, who was deputising for the Taoiseach, said the job losses were trade-related and inevitable.

He told TDs in the Dáil that Enterprise Ireland has been in constant contact with the company this week and was offering as much assistance as possible.

“This is obviously a very disappointing development for the workers and their families,” he said.

He added that state agencies like FAS were on alert to retrain staff and source alternative employment. The minister said there had been a significant number of job announcements in the Co Waterford area over the past five years.

“Unfortunately this latest development is a disappointing one for this major company, which is so closely associated with the city and the county.”

He was commenting after it emerged that 500 jobs are likely to be lost soon at the famous Waterford Crystal factory.

It is understood that the falling price of the dollar has impacted badly on the profitability of Waterford Wedgwood products, which are heavily dependent on export to the US.

At the same time - in an echo of the situation at Seagate in Limavady, in Northern Ireland - where 900 jobs are being lost in favour of a Seagate facility in the Far East, it is also believed that up to half of the 1,000 jobs at the Waterford Crystal plant in Waterford City are to be outsourced to a company in Slovenia, which already manufactures part of the Waterford Crystal range.

Workers at the plant say they are resigned to the fact that between 450 and 500 job cuts will be made at the plant in the coming weeks.

"We're facing into a reality of significant redundancies of up to 500 workers," said Pat Fitzgerald, branch chairman of trade union UNITE, formerly the ATGWU.

Union officials have been given a specific list of 393 jobs at the plant, which they say management now want to shed.

Union reps met yesterday with management after staff voiced concerns about speculation that their jobs were to be outsourced to eastern Europe.

Last month the Waterford Wedgwood chairman, Sir Anthony O'Reilly, told the company's AGM that management would conduct a "root and branch overhaul of the company globally".

The company is now in talks with a major investor with a view to raising around �50m to finance the restructuring programme.

(BMcC)