Cadbury committed to Ireland despite job losses, says Bruton

Minister for Jobs Richard Bruton has said the owners of Cadbury were committed to an €11.7 million investment at its Coolock plant.

Owners Mondelez Ireland last week announced 145 job losses at the site. Mr Bruton said “we put a great deal of time and effort into working with Cadbury in the hope that this could be avoided”.

But the Minister, who briefed local TDs earlier yesterday, said the company “believes that it has a strong future in Dublin and it is putting hard money into that”.

In the Dáil he told local TDs Independents Terence Flanagan, Tommy Broughan and Finian McGrath and Labour TD Seán Kenny that he had instructed Enterprise Ireland "to do the co-ordination work across all the State agencies, including the Department of Social Protection, Solas, local enterprise offices, NERA and all the other services that could be of support to workers in this scenario".

Mr Bruton, who is also TD for the area, said the job losses were “a reminder to us that every day is a battle”.

“If we want to sustain higher pay, we need to have better production processes, higher efficiencies and all of that”.

He said they were “trading in a competitive global environment and costs in plants in a global group such as this are compared”. Mr Flanagan pointed to the blocking by the Hershey company of the importation of Cadbury’s chocolate into the US.

Mr Broughan said in 2010 the Coolock plant was so efficient it beat off another in Bristol to be maintained. “If it was so cost effective then why are we now grappling with this situation” and cost issues, he asked.

Mr McGrath expressed concern the company was planning to restructure existing employment terms and conditions.