Taoiseach Micheál Martin has taken aim at Twitter boss Elon Musk as he stressed that Irish employees must be treated with “respect” and “dignity”.
Following the billionaire’s takeover of the social media company, it was announced that hundreds of jobs around the world would be cut.
Some 500 people are employed in Twitter’s Dublin office.
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It is understood that some Irish staff were told this morning that they no longer have jobs.
Speaking in Tipperary on Friday, Mr Martin said that “no matter who you are”, people need to treat others with respect.
“We are concerned and our concern is there for the employees of Twitter,” he said.
“It has changed ownership and, globally, there seems to be a fairly unprecedented approach being adopted here to a global workforce. That's manifesting itself in Ireland
“What I would say is fundamentally no matter who you are, what sector you are in, one must always treat people with dignity and respect.
“The employees of Twitter deserve to be treated with respect.
“I read some of the commentary from some of the workers and they've enjoyed working with the Twitter that they knew. "They had [a] good sense of collegiality there and they enjoyed their work experience.
“A sort of summary notice of dismissal or ‘you're no longer working’ is not acceptable.
“It's not the way we conduct industrial relations or organised relationships between employer and employees.
“There has to be respect. There has to be dignity in situations like this.”
Mr Martin urged caution about the suggestion that there could be a “tech wreck” and further job losses could be on the way.
He noted that the war in Ukraine is having an impact on certain sectors.
The Taoiseach also said that companies can often regress and bounce back.
He continued: “I've been through a situation where one time during my political life, we were fighting for the survival of Apple. Now there are 6,000 people working in Ireland in Apple.
“No doubt the tech world is going through a very difficult period for a number of reasons.
“We've got to absorb those and have a focus on how we look at the newer opportunities that will undoubtedly arise.”
Earlier on Friday, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar suggested that tech giants may have “expanded too quickly” in response to the news of huge job losses at Twitter and Stripe in Dublin.
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