IRISH INDUSTRIAL explosives company Kemek Ltd has reduced its employee numbers by just under 43 per cent this year as the recession continues to blow a hole in its profits.

The company, which is half owned by Irish-listed building materials group CRH, has reduced the size of its workforce to 52. This is down from 91 last year, and a peak of 138 in mid-2008.

The figures emerged yesterday as the company published its 2009 accounts which show that its profit after tax fell to €1.9 million from €10.9 million a year earlier.

In 2007, the surplus was more than €17 million as it benefited from the boom in house-building and large infrastructure projects in Ireland.

However, the company, which is led by John Higgins, has been significantly downsized in the past three years to reflect the sharp fall-off in activity in the Irish construction sector as the economy imploded.

Sales declined to €25.2 million last year from €43.8 million in 2008 as the company felt the impact of the recession.

“There was a very significant drop in sales demand in 2009 compared to the previous year,” the directors’ report stated.

“Falling demand on a month by month basis resulted in sales revenues being down 43 per cent for the full year compared to 2008,” it said.

In spite of this, the company paid a €2.88 million dividend to its shareholders in 2009. This brought to €29 million the amount it has paid in dividends over the past three years.

The company said the outlook for 2010 was for “an even more challenging environment as capital spending in the economy is further curtailed and many road construction activities due to finish with virtually no significant new projects in the pipeline in the medium term”.

The 2009 accounts show that Kemek took a charge of €2.9 million in redundancy costs compared with €1.6 million in the previous year.

Kemek’s wage bill was reduced to €5.3 million last year from €7.7 million in 2008.

Kemek’s accounts show sales to CRH companies last year amounted to €6 million, down from €7.6 million a year earlier.

Founded in 1964 by Seán O’Sullivan and Paddy O’Neill as Irish Industrial Explosives, the company’s main factory is in Enfield, Co Meath.

It also operates Ulster Industrial Explosives in Co Antrim.

The company is owned jointly by CRH and France’s EPC Group, one of Europe’s biggest providers of explosives for mining, quarrying and public works.