News of redundancies comes as a surprise to Leixlip workforce

There was a steady flow of workers coming and going from Intel's plant in Leixlip, Co Kildare yesterday afternoon, but few if any seemed to have heard of the planned job cuts at the company.

As news emerged of the multinational's proposals to seek 200 voluntary redundancies from its 5,100-strong Irish workforce, most of those declined to comment when asked for their reaction to the decision.

Others said they knew nothing about the proposed voluntary redundancies.

One man who was leaving the plant in his car said he was aware that there was talk about job losses, but that as far as he knew the cuts did not affect his section.

Another said that he had heard something about it but that he was not involved. "These kind of things tend to be told to people higher up first, by the time it comes to us you lot have heard about it," he said.

A female employee of the company asked "what job cuts?" when questioned yesterday evening about the announcement, while another male employee said he had not been in work for a while and, as a result, had heard nothing about it.

None of those interviewed by The Irish Times provided their names.

Cllr Teresa Byrne (FG) of Leixlip town council last night said that, while the loss of 200 jobs at Intel was to be regretted, it was encouraging that the announcement related to voluntary redundancies.

"They are not just picking people out and saying go go go, " she said. "I would think really that we've been very very lucky when you see the layoffs in other computer companies right across the board."

Ms Byrne said she was not aware of where the redundancies would come from within the company, although it is thought that the majority are likely to be sought from within the company's loss-making flash memory business.

A lot of Leixlip locals are employed with Intel, but its workers come from "far and wide", Ms Byrne said.

In her role with the council, she had met with Intel management on a number of occasions and had found them to be genuinely helpful when it came to facilitating staff who were leaving the company.

"There have been redundancies before . . . it does happen unfortunately," she said.