The north Cork region will suffer an "economic meltdown" from major job cuts at Dairygold co-operative expected to begin later this year, the Mitchelstown Business Association has warned the Government.
In a letter to the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, the business association said it was difficult to convey the impact the proposed reorganisation would have.
"The reorganisation as proposed will, proportionately, impact more seriously on north Cork than did the closure of Fords and Dunlops in Cork and Digital in Galway," the MBA told the Minister in the letter, dated August 6th.
The exact number of jobs to be lost is not yet known, although the company's chief executive, Mr Gerry Henchy, has made little secret of his belief that it must undergo "root and branch" change.
Already, Dairygold has announced that 170 jobs will be cut from its transport division's payroll when drivers will be given the opportunity of buying out their trucks to become self-employed contractors.
"If the reorganisation is carried through on the scale reported - and there is nothing to suggest that it will not be - then what is in prospect, unless effective ameliorative strategies are put in place, is the economic meltdown of Mitchelstown and north Cork," the MBA told Ms Harney.
Dairygold, which was formed from the merger of Mitchelstown and Ballyclough co-operatives, employs over 3,000 people at four plants around Co Cork and nearly 30 agri-business stores.
With a turnover of more than €950 million annually, Dairygold has some of the country's best-known food brands, including Dairygold spread, Mitchelstown cheese, Sno yoghurts and Galtee pork and bacon products.
Demanding action by the Government in advance of job losses, the association said "radical intervention", such as infrastructural spending, a jobs taskforce, reskilling programmes, were needed to lessen the impact of the job losses.
Earlier this year the MBA warned that Mitchelstown and its hinterland were at serious risk, because of the lack of proper infrastructure, such as broadband, and the "huge exposure to the well-being of a single large employer".
"Our fears have been graphically realised in recent weeks, and already the impact on workers, their families and the entire community has been immense," the association told the Minister.
In 2002 a leading economist, Mr Peter Bacon, reported in his North West Strategic Study to Cork County Council that there was a need for "co-ordinated, national political action" if the region's future was to be safeguarded.
"If Mr Bacon's conclusions were valid in 2002, then they become an imperative because of events in recent months," the letter, signed by the MBA's chairman, Mr Paudie Fitzgibbon, declared.
Highlighting Dairygold's role in the months to come, the association said: "We assume that Dairygold will acknowledge that it has onerous social and economic responsibilities to north Cork from which base it has developed its business.
"The management and scheduling of their proposed changes will play a key role in ameliorating their impact," it said, particularly to allow time for emergency countermeasures.
"However, we particularly look to your offices, Tánaiste, to facilitate the establishment, as a matter of urgency, of the kind of structures necessary to deal with the kind of cataclysmic change which the town of Mitchelstown will face in the short to medium future," the association wrote.
Seeking an urgent meeting with Ms Harney, the MBA voiced its willingness to co-operate both with the Government and "all key stakeholders" to ensure that Dairygold changes did not signal the economic demise of the north Cork area.
The Mitchelstown Business Association said last evening that it awaited a considered response from Ms Harney and would seek to work with the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment.