WHEN Digital announced in February 1993 the closure of its computer hardware plant in Galway with the loss of 780 jobs, it was described as "a regional catastrophe" that would remove £100 million a year from the local economy.
The talk was of hundreds more jobs going in supplier companies. It was feared the bottom would fall out of the city's buoyant property market. Galway knows what Tallaght is going through in terms of pervasive gloom.
Less than four years later, the number of jobs generated with the help of the city's task force, structured almost exactly as the body announced for Tallaght, is probably running at twice the number of jobs lost. Between two large US multinationals alone, APC and Boston Scientific, almost 1,000 are employed in advanced manufacturing, many in the plant occupied by Digital.
New houses in Galway currently cost on average more than anywhere in Ireland. Last week, Digital itself confirmed that it employed 500 people in the city though, significantly, these are in computer software; an indication of where job skill demands are concentrated as opposed to the basic manufacturing of the past.
Lest Tallaght is feeling that it is simply a case of copying Galway, those who participated in the task force warn that a comparison is "not one of like with like". Tallaght, nevertheless, could learn a lot from Galway in terms of how it responds, according to Galway Development Officer Mr Charles Lynch, who was on the task force.
Key differences are the level of skill/education among the Digital workers, the marketability of the plant and its location and the "unique generosity" of the company, which provided counselling and training for its staff, staggered lay offs and offered generous redundancy packages.
A manual worker was able to come away with £60,000 after 21 years' service; those more skilled with a lot more. Digital made available its plant for replacement industry, re employed workers elsewhere and helped suppliers get new customers.
Yet, it was a company that nurtured workers "from the cradle to the grave", according to Mr Lynch, which meant the task force, with FAS, the IDA and other agencies, had to readjust the worker focus.
Galway Enterprise Board has backed 27 projects involving former Digital people which provided more than 100 jobs. Galway Technology Centre, fostered by the city's chamber of commerce, employs close to 100 people in a project prompted by the Digital demise.
Tallaght, Mr Lynch said, should exploit Packard's connection with General Motors to the maximum and wring as many concessions on the use of the factory building as possible.