Anticipating and Managing Restructuring: Ireland

This national background paper examines restructuring developments in Ireland. It gives an overview of the general economic and labour market context of the country, in particular against the background of the economic crisis.

The report includes data on redundancies, and the challenges that the rising level of redundancies pose, especially in sectors such as construction, which has been particularly hard hit by the recent recession.

The context within which restructuring takes place is set out in Chapter 1, focusing on the legislative framework, a description of the actors involved in restructuring, the role of the public employment services, and the unemployment benefits and training measures on offer to workers who lose their jobs.

Chapter 2 contains examples of the measures and tools used to manage restructuring, focusing on state support for workers and the range of company-level support on offer. Chapter 2 also looks at a range of measures designed to mitigate the impact of restructuring, such as state redundancy and company severance payments.

Chapter 3 focuses on case study examples of company initiatives to manage restructuring, referring to debates held at the National Seminar, as relevant.

Chapter 4 offers an evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses of the anticipating and managing measures.

Chapter 5 contains conclusions, drawn up on the basis of the content of this report and the debates held during the Irish National Seminar on 17-18 December 2009.