PRESS RELEASE
August 10th, 2009

MSP snub to minister

Greenock and Inverclyde MSP Duncan McNeil has slammed Scottish Government minister Jim Mather for ‘showing his face’ in Inverclyde after his cack-handed response to local redundancies.

Enterprise minister Mather was due in Greenock to sign off the single outcome agreement with the local authority.

But the local MSP snubbed the event because of Mather’s failure to get involved when Mr McNeil warned him of the job threat at the TSC contact centre earlier this year.

He said: “I think the minister has a brass neck turning up for this event given his lack of interest in the recent TSC job losses.

“The minister tried to assure me everything in the garden was rosy when I wrote to him but his failure to engage with local companies was abysmal.

“I will continue to press this issue and that is why I have lodged a number of parliamentary questions about the government’s involvement with TSC and the outcome for those workers made redundant.

“I would be doing those redundant workers a great disservice if I was to participate in what is essentially a PR exercise for the minister and I will not be attending for that reason.”

ENDS