Over 70 jobs are to be lost in Kilkenny city with the closure of a US textile company.
Textech, a US-owned company which makes the outer coverings of tennis balls blamed the decision to close on its main customers moving out of Europe to lower cost countries.
It is the second closure since Christmas of a textile company in Kilkenny. Last December, 160 workers in the Comerama Textiles, Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny lost their jobs.
TexTech's managing director in Kilkenny, Mr Michael Power, said a number of things had conspired against the company to force the closure. "We lost our customer base as all but two of them moved out of Europe because of high costs," he said.
He added that the company would now fulfil its orders to its existing Irish based customers, Penn, Mullingar and Tretorn, Portlaoise.
He said the closure would be orderly and would be phased over the next few months. Negotiations will begin this week on a redundancy package.