Social Democrats TD Eoin Hayes boasts about co-leading team that cut 200 tech jobs

Though Social Democrats TD Eoin Hayes wrote in the Irish Times last month that losing a job is "one of the most traumatic events a person can go through”, he co-led a team responsible for cutting 200 jobs at a global tech company – including 70 roles in his own constituency.

“The financial pressure is immense, as is the personal crisis of self-doubt and loss of social participation,” wrote Hayes, whose profile on recruitment site GoFractional boasts of co-leading a team "executing a 40 percent reduction in headcount" and cutting operational expenditure by 50 percent in six months “with no business interruption.”

The account was deleted at some stage today. “I set up the GoFractional account several years ago, but the account has long been dormant and I never took on any new clients from it,” Hayes told The Ditch.

Less than two years after his nine-month spell at fintech company Wayflyer, Hayes entered politics in June 2024 with his election literature saying he wanted to “create high paying jobs”. 

‘Deeply passionate about helping founders win’

The Social Democrats suspended Eoin Hayes in December 2024 after he was found to have lied about his shareholding in US defence software company Palantir Technologies.

He worked at Irish tech company Wayflyer as fractional head of financial planning and analysis/special projects from March 2022 to December 2022. 

The company's trading address – where staff worked – was 19-22 Lower Baggot Street, Dublin 2, moving to One Park Place, Hatch Street Upper, Dublin 2 at some point in 2022. 

Both are in Dublin Bay South, the constituency now represented by Hayes. 

In November 2022  Wayflyer announced it intended to cut 200 jobs, about one third of its workforce. This included 70 in Ireland. 

The cuts took place just nine months after Wayflyer raised $150 million in funding at a valuation of $1.6 billion. 

“We tried to scale our organisation very aggressively over the past 15 months, and in hindsight, we tried to do too much, too soon,” said CEO  Aidan Corbett as reported by The Journal.  “We are sorry to be losing many great colleagues, who have helped Wayflyer become a market leader in revenue based finance.”

On his public listing on GoFractional, Hayes takes credit for co-leading the team responsible for these cuts. 

He also says he is "deeply passionate about helping founders win" and mentions his stint at Wayflyer. He also discusses his time at US defence contractor Palantir and says he enjoys “hiking and raising money for charity in my spare time!" 

The Social Democrats have criticised private-sector mass redundancies and called for stronger statutory worker protections. The party's 2024 workers' rights policy calls on government to introduce a statutory right to trade union recognition, legislate to protect workers from being penalised for union membership and implement bans on zero-hour contracts. 

Hayes himself has directly challenged companies who engage in mass lay-offs like the ones he presided over. 

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way,” he wrote in his Irish Times column last month. “The technology sector has been a huge part of Ireland’s recovery, bringing a new era of innovation and prosperity for those in well-paid jobs.” 

Hayes explained his role at the company to The Ditch.

“In early 2022, I was recruited into Wayflyer as part of the financial planning and analysis team, charged with generating financial models to analyse and project business performance. My role in the company’s cross-functional project team (along with HR and legal ) was to model the financial impact of the decisions of the management team and the board. I did so.

“I did not let anyone go at Wayflyer. I was not on the board or on the senior management team. I did not make any decisions about who would be let go or how many people. In fact, I also lost my job at Wayflyer at that time.

“I absolutely understand the trauma of losing a job, and set out in politics to try and build an economy that prevents or ameliorates these kinds of eventualities,” he said.

The Social Democrats have been contacted for comment.