‘There’s been a feeling of despair in midlands so €30m is good news’
RESIDENTS and workers in the midlands still the increasing threat to Bord na Móna jobs despite the confirmation of a special €30m Budget package for the region.
Seán Craven (66), who is retired having worked for Bord na Móna for more than four decades, said it was “a pensionable job for life”.
“But now my son-in-law works there and things have changed a great deal,” he said.
“My wife and I look after our grandchildren and we want our family to stay locally but we fear for the future, that they might not be able to.”
Mr Craven, from Kilcormac, Co Offaly, said he was “lucky” to be able to drive just a few kilometres down the road to work all his life.
He wants the workers at risk of losing their jobs to be able to retrain as the Budget package promises.
The Budget hike in carbon tax is expected to bring in an extra €90m next year.
This is being ring-fenced for climate action measures and almost a third of it will go to help communities in the midlands that will be affected by the winding-down of peat industries by Bord na Móna and the ESB.
Some €20m will be pumped into a new energy-efficiency scheme targeted, at first, at social housing in the midlands region, which will create new sustainable employment.
Another €5m will be allocated for peatland rehabilitation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
And a Just Transition Fund will be established to prioritise issues identified by local communities while another €6m will be available for this fund next year.
It is hoped it will create 400 environmentally sustainable jobs with 100 more positions through peatlands rehabilitation.
“I’m confident Bord na Móna workers can retrain,” Mr Craven said. “Many would have worked in different fields before, including the building trade, but we need this money to be ring-fenced and spent for its purpose locally.
“There’s been a feeling of despair locally so this package is good news and we have to have hope for the future but, yes, there is a degree of caution too.
“We just need to know exactly how the money will be spent locally and to ensure that it helps secure safe and pensionable jobs for this generation to allow them to stay in the midlands.”
But Independent councillor John Leahy, from Kilcormac, said: “The package is a joke. It doesn’t go far enough. We would need the full €30m just to create jobs. And I’m not so sure how easy it would be to immediately retrain people. It may take years and people need urgent options now.”
It was a view echoed by ICTU general secretary Patricia King: “The Minister for Finance claims [it] will support 500 environmentally sustainable jobs. However, Bord na Móna employs more than 2,000 workers, so it appears the plan for Just Transition falls a long way short of this number.
“The scale of the challenge in relation to ESB and Bord na Móna will require massive investment.”