OVER ONE THIRD of Twitter’s staff in Ireland are to be made redundant, with 140 jobs set to go at their headquarters in Dublin.

The job losses were confirmed by Tánaiste Leo Varadkar this evening in Athlone.

Speaking to reporters, Varadkar said that the Department of Enterprise received a notification today from Twitter about the redundancies.

“We did receive, at long last, the redundancy notice from Twitter today in the Department,” Varadkar said.

“It’s about 140 redundancies, so obviously once again my thoughts are with the staff who are affected.

“It’s roughly a third, just over a third of the staff in Dublin will be made redundant.

“They can be assured that they will receive a lot of government help. Whether its job search to find a new job, whether they want to set up their own business, we can help with that too.”

When asked if he was concerned about further job losses at the tech giant, Varadkar said that he “can’t predict the future” and that it was too early to speculate on the future of the company.

His comments come as Twitter staff continue to leave the company en masse, with reports that in the US that the company has closed its offices over concerns that disgruntled employees may sabotage operations.

Earlier today, Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that he was concerned at the closure of the Irish office, saying that the IDA were in constant contact with the company.

Twitter's Irish headquarters Sam Boal Sam Boal

“Employees of any company must be treated with respect and dignity,” Martin said.

“It’s unacceptable what’s happening within Twitter in terms of employees who must have a very uncertain future.”

He added that there needed to be a “clear roadmap” for workers in the weeks ahead.

New billionaire owner Elon Musk has said that he isn’t “super worried” about the number of resignations at the company, saying that “the best people are staying”.

The news of Twitter job cuts first began two weeks ago after billionaire Elon Musk completed his takeover of the social media company, with half of the staff being sacked almost immediately.