Firm was within its rights to close in 30 days

THE Government has admitted it is powerless to prevent companies such as telephone giant Talk Talk from giving employees just 30 days’ notice before closing down.

And there is no appetite within Cabinet to introduce legislation that would require companies to give longer notice of job losses.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny and senior ministers expressed their displeasure with the short notice given to the 575 workers at Talk Talk’s Waterford call centre, who were told on Wednesday that the facility would close after a 30-day period of “consultation and transition”.

But Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton conceded that Talk Talk had not breached any laws and said he did not favour introducing regulations that would force companies to give longer periods of notice.

Asked what could stop another company from behaving in the same way, he replied: “There aren’t formal protocols in a sense. Obviously there are minimum periods of notice that workers have to receive; there are minimum consultation periods under different employment acts.

“It is not my understanding that they are in formal breach of that.

“But I think it is common corporate responsibility that just as they expect workers to be committed to the company, there needs to be a degree of commitment to the workers.

“We are not a country that tries to tie up enterprise in a lot of regulatory (requirements), but you expect a certain approach from companies, and we do feel let down at the approach the company has taken.”

Mr Bruton said he had expressed “extreme displeasure” to Talk Talk chief executive Dido Harding about the lack of notice given to both workers and the state, and had requested more time so that the IDA could seek to sell the facility as a going concern to another employer and save the jobs.

But Talk Talk gave no indication last night that it would meet the request and also rejected suggestions that the Government had expressed anger directly to the company.

A company spokesperson said: “The conversations we’ve been having with them have been quite constructive. They’ve naturally spoken to us about the length of the consultation process, but they haven’t expressed anger… We’re comfortable that we went about this the right way.”

The Cabinet discussed the issue yesterday. Social Protection Minister Joan Burton announced that officials from her department, Fás and the Money Advice and Budgeting Services would visit the centre “as soon as possible” to brief workers on help available to them.

Mr Bruton will travel to Waterford on Monday to meet with workers and local representatives.