North Dublin was hit with another employment blow today as a manufacturing company in Clonshaugh announced it is to shed 75 staff.
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The workers, mostly manufacturing operatives, are to lose their jobs at GE Superabrasives Ireland, which makes industrial diamonds.
The company is laying off a third of its staff of 225 as part of a global restructuring of GE plants, made necessary by aggressive competition from manufacturers in Europe, Russia and Asia.
The redundancies are expected to be completed by the beginning of next February. However, the company said in a statement today it was "confident" the remaining 150 jobs were safe.
The company, which has been operating in north Dublin for 20 years, is a subsidiary of General Electric, the US manufacturing giant.
Following the announcement, the Labour TD for North Dublin, Mr Tommy Broughan, accused the Tánaiste, Ms Harney of being ignorant of the crisis jobs situation facing his constituency, where 6,000 jobs have been lost since August.
He said Ms Harney stated three weeks ago that there were no threatened job losses at the company when he raised the issue in the Dáil. GE Superabrasives said in today’s statement that it had notified staff and unions "some weeks ago" that an announcement on jobs was imminent.
"Either the Tánaiste was deliberately misleading Dáil Éireann or else she is totally in the dark as what's happening on the ground," Mr Broughan said.
"This is another setback for the local community, and small traders and service providers who depend on these wage packets," Mr Broughan said.
