A TD has said that Meta Ireland’s decision to cut 350 jobs raises difficult questions about the reliability of such jobs when multinational corporations decide to restructure.
Ken O’Flynn TD was speaking on Thursday after Meta cited Artificial Intelligence as its main reason for cutting up to 350 jobs of its 1800 staff based in Dublin as part of a major global restructuring programme.
The Facebook giant informed the Government of its plans to slash the number of Irish employees. The big tech giant’s cuts are twice as severe as its global reduction of 10 per cent, to result in a loss of up to 20 per cent of its staff in Dublin. It comes as the tech firm, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp, plans to spend around €80 billion on AI this year.
Mr O’Flynn called for urgent government engagement following the job losses in Ireland. The Independent Ireland TD said the development was deeply concerning, and was another serious blow to the confidence in Ireland’s technology sector. He said the development also raises wider questions about the State’s long-term industrial strategy.
The company’s Irish workforce had around 3,000 staff at its peak before Covid. This has since been reduced by around 40 per cent – with 1,800 people currently employed across Dublin, its data centre in Co Meath, and Reality Labs in Cork.
Meta has repeatedly indicated that advances in AI would result in fewer people needed for the work it is doing. The company previously implemented significant Irish redundancies during 2022 and 2023, with total estimated direct job losses in Ireland since 2022 to top 1,000 positions.
In April, Meta founder and boss Mark Zuckerberg announced redundancies while also scrapping hiring plans amid widespread layouts impacting the tech industry. Zuckerberg indicated that the cutting of jobs would help to “offset” the cost of spending on AI, to run into billions of dollars.
In January, Mark Zuckerberg said that the company was starting to see projects “that used to require big teams now be accomplished by a single very talented person.”
In a memo sent to staff and seen by the publication Bloomberg, Meta executives said: “We’re doing this as part of our continued effort to run the company more efficiently and to allow us to offset the other investments we’re making.”
Similarly, after Elon Musk bought Twitter (now X) in late 2022, the billionaire laid off roughly 80 per cent of the company’s workforce in a move to steer it toward greater profitability.
But TD O’Flynn said that families across Ireland will now wake up worried about their futures.
“Behind every redundancy figure is a worker, a mortgage, a family and a life that has been turned upside down. Ireland has spent years promoting itself as a global technology hub,’ said O’Flynn.
“We now need to ask difficult questions about how resilient those jobs really are when multinational corporations decide to restructure.”
Deputy O’Flynn said Ireland cannot remain overly dependent on a small number of multinational employers without developing stronger indigenous enterprise and long-term economic resilience.
“We cannot build an economy where thousands of workers live under constant fear of global boardroom decisions made thousands of miles away,” he said.
“The Government must now engage directly with affected workers and ensure rapid access to employment supports, retraining pathways and income protections where required. There must also be a wider national conversation about Ireland’s exposure to concentrated multinational employment risk.”
The TD also warned that repeated redundancy rounds across major technology firms risk damaging public confidence in the stability of the sector.
“Since 2022, Ireland has witnessed wave after wave of technology sector redundancies. These are not isolated incidents anymore. This is a pattern,” he said.
“The government needs to present a serious strategy for protecting high-value employment in Ireland while also supporting Irish-owned enterprise and regional economic growth.”
Deputy O’Flynn said Cork and regional cities must form part of any future economic diversification strategy.
“We need balanced economic development across Ireland. Dublin alone cannot continue carrying the weight of national economic exposure. Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford must all become stronger centres for investment, innovation and long-term job creation.”
The Communications Workers’ Union has also urged the Government to take action to protect the rights of workers. It said it has seen a “significant and accelerating” increase in membership among Meta employees.
Meta’s plans come amid widespread lay-offs throughout the tech industry as executives pump more money into AI tools they hope can help people work more efficiently and minimise the need for large workforces.
“We’re elevating individual contributors and flattening teams,” Zuckerberg said in January.
The Financial Times reported in April that Meta was creating an AI clone of Mark Zuckerberg, capable of answering staff queries. The outlet reported that the clone was being trained on the CEO’s mannerisms and tone as well as his public statements, with the motive behind the project being that Meta’s 79,000 employees could feel more “connected” to their boss.