Dell announces more jobs cuts

Dell has announced it is to cut up to 230 jobs in Ireland saying further cuts were required as part of a new $4 billion restructuring plan.

The news means a further 100 jobs will be lost at the already battered Raheen facility. 130 jobs will be lost at their Cherrywood offices in Dublin.It brings to total number of jobs lost in Dell in Limerick to 2,000.

The company already cut a massive 1900 jobs at the Raheen plant in January when they announced all manufacturing operations were moving to Poland.

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Fine Gael Limerick East TD and deputy finance spokesman Kieran O’Donnell TD said today,

"These are the very jobs we had hoped to build on in Limerick following January’s announcement of 1,900 manufacturing job losses in Dell…the fact that high-end jobs in business development, innovation and research and development are going is a very worrying development."

Limerick Labour TD Jan O'Sullivan TD said the news represents economic catastrophe for Limerick,

“The Limerick jobs taskforce must now include in its remit, a reaction to this latest blow and respond accordingly. The priority now has to be on the creation of new jobs and re-training opportunities for all of those who are now out of work in the region.

Fas, the VECs, the University of Limerick and Limerick IT must be closely involved in providing retraining opportunities and there should be individualised programmes made available to meet the particular needs and skills of each worker.

This is another black day for Limerick. However, Limerick has recovered from economic blows in the past and I have no doubt that with the political will and the appropriate supports, we can recover from these losses also”

Limerick operation Limerick Sinn Féin representative Maurice Quinlivan was quick to ask Minister Willie O’Dea to “make a statement with regard to the 750 jobs he announced for Limerick when Dell made its original announcement of job losses in January.”

“In just twelve months unemployment has increased by 184,061 with jobs losses now reaching almost 1,000 every day. There are 17,223 people signing on the live register here in limerick. The number one priority for any government at this point should be retaining and creating jobs. Sinn Féin will launch its strategy document Time for Action to tackle unemployment on Monday March 23rd.”

“At the time of Dell’s initial announcement of the loss of 1,900 jobs Willie O’Dea made an announcement that Limerick was to benefit from the creation of 750 higher quality jobs. He now needs to tell the people of Limerick where these jobs are and when they will come on stream and I call on him to make a statement to this affect.”

“Rather than trying to detract from the seriousness of the jobs crisis in Limerick Minister O’Dea and his Government need to bring forward a coherent strategy to create and retain jobs and get Ireland back to work.”

The latest job losses will come into effect before the end of the year.