A total of 220 jobs are to be lost in Co Tipperary and Monaghan at the end of a bleak week for Irish manufacturing. Grove Turkeys in Smithboro, Co Monaghan, is laying off 130 workers, while 90 jobs are to go at the Merriot Radiator plant (formerly Barlo) in Clonmel, Co Tipperary. Both companies blamed adverse trading conditions and increased competition from abroad. Ronan McGreevyand Mark Hennessyreport.
The Clonmel closure brought a stinging reaction from Martin Mansergh, Fianna Fáil TD for Tipperary South, who criticised the factory's owner Sean Quinn, one of Ireland's richest businessmen. The billionaire Mr Quinn was "wrong" to have bought the Barlo factory just four years ago only to close it down now and transfer work to Wales, said Mr Mansergh.
He invested several hundreds of millions in the Welsh plant, while denying the Clonmel operation of investment, he charged.
"Sean Quinn is a very successful and wealthy businessman, one of the wealthiest in Ireland, a multibillionaire, whose group made profits of some €430 million in 2006.
"It has often been said, and very often unfairly, that multinationals are footloose with no commitment to their current locations. It is deeply disappointing that an Irish-owned group, SeaQuinn, should close down a manufacturing plant here to transfer it to Wales.
"I understand that, no sooner had Barlo's been acquired about four years ago, that €200 million was invested by Mr Sean Quinn in the plant in Wales, which is only open a few months. How long ago did the group decide privately the Barlo's plant in Clonmel should be closed?"
The Quinn group, which owns the Merriott Radiator plant, said it was being forced to close the business because the scale of the operation was not big enough to compete in UK and European markets. The plant has been in operation since 1967 and was taken over by the Quinn group in 2004. Consultations have begun with the unions and a timetable for redundancies has yet to be decided.
Local senator Phil Prendergast said the Quinn group was relocating the plant to another operation in Newport in Wales.
She said there was a need for an economic forum to seek a replacement industry.
"The Government must now focus on facilitating the retraining of the workforce and on sourcing new jobs for a town that had already seen significant job losses," she said.
Grove Turkeys is to lay off all but 70 of its 200 workers over the next two to three months. The rationalisation programme will also affect 85 farmers on both sides of the Border who will be reduced to seasonal contracts with the company.
Grove said it was struggling against cheap imports and global trade liberalisation and the number of turkeys it has processed has declined from 3.2 million in the 1990s to two million now. Grove Turkeys also blamed high production costs, with an escalation in feed costs and the strength of the euro against sterling as contributing factors to the lay-offs.
The company's managing director Tom O'Driscoll said they were able to compete at peak demand for turkeys, at Christmas and Easter, but struggled at other times to compete with low-cost imports.
Local TD Seymour Crawford said the redundancies illustrated the importance of proper labelling and proper information regarding imports and he accused the Government of not taking positive action to promote Irish food better.
Earlier this week the Allergan plant in Arklow announced its closure, with the loss of 360 jobs.