Unconfirmed reports that Elan will abandon plans to create between 250 and 300 jobs in the former GSI electronics plant in Macroom, which closed last year with the loss of 650 jobs, have been greeted with disappointment in the town.
Mr Stephen O'Connor, of Macroom's Task Force set up in the wake of the GSI closure, said, while it was not the body blow the town received last August, it was disappointing.
Mr Denis McCarthy, on behalf of Macroom and District Manufacturing, said that, from a jobs point of view, it would be a disappointment if the Macroom plant was sold to other than an industrial-type manufacturing company. Cllr Pat O'Connell of Macroom Town Council said that, if reports were true, it was disappointing.
An Elan spokesman told The Irish Times that the company would be reviewing all its operations and there would be "no sacred cows". The new chairman and executive team would take time to think through the options and a better understanding of the composition of the plan would be available at the end of the month, she said.
Recruitment at the new plant was expected to have taken place early in 2004, with the plant expected to be up and running in the first quarter of 2005. It was expected that €60 million would be spent on the plant.
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