“The hammer of Trumps tariffs will fall hardest on Cork while government has left us defenceless.” Ken O’Flynn

Independent Ireland TD for Cork North-Central Ken O’Flynn has said government “has now been forced to get off its complacent backside” after its two main parties “effectively wasted the last 4 years by destroying whatever political capital they may now have had with US President Donald Trump, who has clearly signalled that he will impose tariffs on Ireland’s multi-billion-euro pharmaceutical sector.”

Deputy O’Flynn went on to state that there is a sense of genuine industrial wide panic among many of the estimated 12,000 pharmaceutical workers in Cork, where seven of the world’s top ten pharmaceutical companies are located:

“If the government parties had spent as much time monitoring the political and cultural headwinds that all clearly indicated a Trump return, instead of lambasting and ridiculing the man for the last four years, then we could have had a much stronger negotiating position with the President and his administration,” said Deputy O’Flynn.

“As it is government parties have once again demonstrated that they have a veritable talent for being late to the party. Government have clearly decimated our options in terms of benefiting from high levels of political capital; capital that the workers in Cork now desperately need.”

“Government must demonstrate that it is taking every single available option toward mitigating the impact of any tariffs that may arise as even a moderate decline in pharma related GDP growth has to be avoided.”

“I do not believe for one moment that the last number of governments have been proactive enough on the broader issue of preparedness for an attack on our pharma sector. They chose to live in fantasy land while the ordinary workers are now left facing the nightmare of an economic strike at the heart of the sector,” concluded Deputy O’Flynn.