The former Farah textile plant at Kiltimagh, Co Mayo, is to close in July with about 85 job losses, the new owners, TJT Manufacturing, have announced.

Farah, which also had a premises in Galway until it was destroyed by a fire in December, 1996, sold its Mayo premises to a management group the following year. The local SIPTU negotiator, Mr Sean Nolan, said some of the workers had worked on the east Mayo premises for over two decades. "The decision has been greeted with disappointment but will not have been entirely unexpected, however, given the recent history of short-time working which had been introduced increasingly since the management buy-out in 1997."