Minister Cannon opens training and education information event for former Talk Talk workers

The EGF is an EU co-financing instrument drawn from savings across the EU budget annually and with an annual funding capacity of up to €500m. Its objective is to assist Member States to provide active labour market supports to workers made redundant as a result of the adverse impacts of globalization.

Upon approval of an EGF application, member states must provide up to 50% of the funding of approved measures. Measures allowable for EGF co-financing include guidance, upskilling and re-skilling, further and higher education opportunities and enterprise supports.

While the delivery of personalised services to the former Talk Talk workers commenced in September 2011, the European Commission formally approved the Department of Education and Skills’ application for co-financing assistance in December 2012. The estimated total cost of the programme is €5,392,765, of which 50% comes from national resources.

In total, there have been 114 EGF applications made since 2007 across the EU with total EU expenditure to date of €394.9m. Ireland has made six successful applications for EGF assistance since 2009. These were in support of redundant workers at Dell (Raheen, Co. Limerick), Waterford Crystal and SR Technics as well as three applications for particular subsectors of the construction industry. The Irish programmes have been supported by some €60.6m in EU funding.