A SPOKESMAN for the Minister of State for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Pat Rabbitte, Democratic Left TD for the area, said last night that the Minister had no comment to make on the Packard closure.
The Minister for Equality and Law Reform, Mr Taylor, told The Irish Times he was shocked at the announcement and the manner in which it was made, considering that the workforce had been extremely loyal to the plant for many years.
Mr Taylor, a local Labour TD, described the treatment of the workforce as deplorable and said that he would be in touch with senior directors at the Packard group headquarters in Germany during the next few days. He had met these people over the past few years when previous crises had arisen in the plant.
Responding to criticism by the Fianna Fail spokeswoman on Enterprise and Employment, Ms Mary O'Rourke, on the handling of Packard by the Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Bruton, and Mr Rabbitte, Mr Taylor said he was sure they could answer Ms O'Rourke without any difficulty.
Ms Mary Harney, leader of the Progressive Democrats and also a TD for the area, described the closure as "a devastating blow to a Dublin employment blackspot".
She said the management at Packard now had questions to answer. "Only last summer it seemed that they had designed a deal to guarantee the plant's future. Now all 800 jobs are to be lost on the closure of the plant. What exactly brought about such radical change over this relatively short period of time?"
Ms O'Rourke said she would be raising the closure in the Dail today and contended that Mr Bruton and Mr Rabbitte had major questions to answer on their handling of the crisis.
"Over the past number of months, the Ministers have been decidedly shifty in the answers which they have given to questions in the Dail in relation to Packard. They have constantly evaded giving full answers," she said. "I will be demanding to know tomorrow what notice the Ministers had of the proposed closure and what information they had been given in recent weeks by Packard's management both here and internationally.
The second Labour TD for the area, Mr Eamon Walsh, who heard of the closure on the RTE 9 p.m. television news, described it as "devastating". "This is stone age industrial relations. For most of the workers this came through the media. It would be typical of Packard," he added.
He said that at this stage it was pointless to try to keep the company in Tallaght, since no one could trust the management. "A lot of workers were telling us for a long time that the company was not worth saving. They are shown to be right. You never knew who was making decisions in that company.
"The best thing now is to use the three months available to get proper redundancy payments and an alternative industry, with decent jobs, for Tallaght."
The Fianna Fail TD for the constituency, Mr Chris Flood, said the closure was a disaster for Tallaght, because it was a major employer in the area". The Government would have to "act immediately to find a substantial replacement industry".