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SIPTU calls on Government to ensure unions involved in efforts to save SR Technics plant from closure

Date Released: 11 Mar 2009

SIPTU Branch Organiser Pat Ward says there are serious questions arising from the strategy adopted by the IDA and Enterprise Ireland in seeking new investors to take over the SR Technics plant in North Dublin. “The IDA and Enterprise Ireland are referring all potential investors to SR Technics and to its Senior Vice President for Corporate Development, Stephanie Kennett. We find it hard to follow the logic of this approach”, he said.

“The fact is that SR Technics is only interested in pulling out of Ireland. The real stakeholders here are the local management and workforce. We have a viable plan to save the facility and SR Technics does not.

“When we met the Tanaiste she told us we would be fully involved in the process and that an independent aviation expert would be on hand to help assess the various options for saving the facility. We understand that an expert has been appointed and has met with management representatives but we have still to be told who this person is, let alone been given an opportunity to meet with them and discuss the bids and our own preferred options.

“As representatives of the largest Irish stakeholders in the process, namely the workforce, we believe the unions should be fully briefed on all expressions of interest and be given an opportunity to meet with interested parties in order to assess their bids from the perspective of keeping jobs and a high value aviation skills base in Ireland. We will be raising the matter with the Tanaiste and all of the political parties over the next few days.

“We are prepared to look at innovative measures – as we were with SR Technics - to ensure continuance of the Dublin facility with those who have expressed an interest, but in order to do so we need to meet them. The issues are too important to be mediated through faceless investors, mostly based in the United Arab Emirates, who have no knowledge of, or interest in Ireland or its people. Why should they be able to vet potential investors and we are denied any access to them?”