TÁNAISTE MARY Coughlan has defended her role and the Government’s approach in dealing with aeromotive firm SR Technics against Opposition claims that they were “taken for fools” by the company and “sleepwalked” through the crisis.
The Swiss-owned firm, described in the Dáil as “multinational vultures”, said it had not received a significant bid for the entire operation and had decided to break up its assets for sale. The aircraft maintenance company, which employs 1,100 people, is due to close in August and the sale of assets would save a maximum of 250 jobs.
Amid trenchant Opposition criticism of the Government’s handling of the crisis at the firm, Ms Coughlan told the Dáil she was “extremely disappointed” the company had decided to wind up its operations, “on the basis of all the interaction that had taken place between me, the agencies and the specialist team set up on our behalf to support the bids and those who were interested”.
The company indicated that bids received from Irish bidders “were well below its assessment . . . of the current market value of the assets”.
She rejected Labour claims that she had “thrown in the towel” and was last night meeting one of the unsuccessful bidders.
She said she had set up a special project team with the IDA and Enterprise Ireland, which received 16 expressions of interest and the company received over 30 in all.
Tommy Broughan (Labour, Dublin North East) said it was rumoured that the “APU and landing gear units are effectively being transferred to a branch of Mubadala Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies” in the United Arab Emirates. He said if that was true then the company “has taken you Tánaiste and the Taoiseach for a pair of total fools” because it meant “the company always intended to strip out SR Technics in Dublin and leave us with empty hangars, no jobs and people trying desperately to survive”.
The Tánaiste said she “received an undertaking from the company that, during the period when the bids were being prepared, the assets would not be removed. Unfortunately, the bid has been accepted and, although the Deputy has alluded to what was rumoured in Dublin airport, one of the clauses of the bid is actually a confidentiality clause.
“That said, it was on that basis that I indicated quite categorically that I was very disappointed”, given the level of interaction and effort by the Government and its agencies, Ms Coughlan said.
Aengus Ó Snodaigh (SF, Dublin South-Central) accused the Tánaiste of being “a waster of time and a waster of jobs” and asked how the Government “has allowed a viable, strategic and world-class Irish industry to be destroyed by multinational vultures”.
Fine Gael deputy leader Richard Bruton said: “Many feel that the Government sleepwalked into this crisis at a time when we cannot afford the haemorrhaging of jobs”.
