{"id":468407,"date":"2026-05-26T20:49:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:49:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/468407\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T20:49:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T20:49:13","slug":"economy-dangerously-dependent-on-tech-giants-dail-told-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/468407\/","title":{"rendered":"Economy \u2018dangerously dependent\u2019 on tech giants, D\u00e1il told \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Republic\u2019s economy \u201cis dangerously dependent on a handful of tech giants\u201d and they know the Government is frightened they will pull investment and move jobs elsewhere, Labour leader Ivana Bacik<\/a> told the D\u00e1il on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

Her remarks came after Meta<\/a> last week cut up to 350 jobs, about 20 per cent of its Irish workforce, as part of the latest round of job losses that will see it shed thousands of roles worldwide. <\/p>\n

The number was significantly higher than the initial 10 per cent expected, causing alarm in Government.<\/p>\n

During Leaders\u2019 Questions in the D\u00e1il Bacik said recent lay-offs in the tech sector are \u201ccausing huge stress and anxiety for those receiving redundancy notices\u201d, for their colleagues and for affected communities. <\/p>\n

She mentioned the cuts at Meta and said more broadly \u201cthe IT sector indeed has shed more than 20,000 jobs in the past year alone here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bacik said that the \u201ctech oligarchs\u201d are \u201cdressing this up\u201d as \u201cmodernisation\u201d and \u201cflattening teams\u201d saying this was \u201cawful language when they\u2019re talking about people\u2019s livelihoods and people\u2019s lives\u201d. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Meta Ireland staff shrinks 50% from Covid peakOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She added: \u201cFlattening companies really means throwing staff to the wolves to satisfy shareholders and inflate share prices.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also claimed that \u201cmultibillion euro corporations led by Trumpian cheerleaders in Silicon Valley are using AI [artificial intelligence] as cover for years of over-hiring and for ruthless cost-cutting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bacik said Ireland\u2019s labour laws are \u201ctoo weak\u201d and that tech companies \u201cknow how vulnerable Ireland is\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"Rents and evictions soar as house price inflation slows<\/p>\n

\u201cOur economy is dangerously dependent on a handful of tech giants and they know your Government is frightened of them, afraid they\u2019ll pull investment, afraid they\u2019ll move jobs elsewhere,\u201d Bcik said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we are in a permanent game of chicken and the biggest losers are the people now fearing for their futures.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bacik said her party is calling for a \u201cserious industrial strategy to ensure that Ireland is more than just a host for multinational profits.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Fears grow in Government over further tech job losses after Meta cuts 20 per cent of Irish workforceOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

She said there is a need to \u201cstart cultivating indigenous Irish enterprise and innovation to develop a domestic start-up boom in the AI and tech sectors\u201d.<\/p>\n

She also said \u201cstronger collective bargaining rights\u201d; \u201cstronger protections for workers facing redundancy\u201d; and \u201cserious investment in education, in retraining, and upscaling,\u201d is needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbove all, we need a Government who will stand up to the tech billionaires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin responded saying the economy was \u201ccontinuing to grow significantly\u201d and \u201cemployment has been fairly consistent, even year on year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cwe have a very robust and resilient employment story made up of SME sectors as well as multinationals.\u201d<\/p>\n

He spoke about how smaller Irish companies work with multinationals and have become capable of \u201csupply into very sophisticated operations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin said the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector does need to be developed and \u201cwe do need to do better at scaling up companies\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite a lot of Irish companies have scaled up on the backs of having originally won contracts with big multinationals,\u201d he went on to say.<\/p>\n

Martin insisted there is a \u201chealthy ecosystem\u201d while adding: \u201cwe do need to invest more\u201d and that \u201cthe skill side is key to AI\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said AI would \u201cchange the world of work, and we shouldn\u2019t be blind to that, and we need to prepare for that\u201d.<\/p>\n

Martin also said the International Monetary Fund had \u201cidentified Ireland as one of the top countries in terms of AI-skilled population and AI-skilled workforce\u201d and also insisted Ireland\u2019s labour laws were strong. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Republic\u2019s economy \u201cis dangerously dependent on a handful of tech giants\u201d and they know the Government is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468408,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60,3657,1226,1843],"class_list":["post-468407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ivana-bacik","tag-meta","tag-micheal-martin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=468407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468407\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}