More than 350 jobs at the Ray-Ban sunglasses manufacturing plant in Waterford city are to come under the spotlight as part of a worldwide evaluation of the business by the parent company, Bausch & Lomb. The company, which employs 15,000 people in 35 countries, also manufactures contact-lens products. However, its evaluation will focus on the sunglasses division. Several options are being considered including the possibility of a joint venture, a straight sale or spinning off the businesses into other divisions.

A US banking firm has been engaged by the parent company in New York, to examine the future of the business.

Bausch & Lomb's president and chief executive officer, Mr William M. Carpenter, said yesterday that the aim was to maximise the value and profitability of the eyewear business and to structure a transition which would allow the company to grow. Although the eyewear business has improved in recent times, he said that it was apparent that Bausch & Lomb's greatest potential for accelerated future growth lay in its eye health-care division. With fears mounting for the future of Waterford jobs, Mr Brendan Power, general manager of the Ray-Ban plant, said his team was focused on making the plant a strategically important operation for the eyewear business. "We have done everything necessary to make us an efficient operation.

"Our costs have been cut, our overheads reduced - the Waterford operation is highly competitive in world terms and we are strategically important in terms of support to the European market," he said.

Mr Power said Ray-Ban as a brand had been revitalised and had made progress gaining market share. "New product-lead times have been dramatically reduced and the product-supply process has been totally transformed," he added.

He said much of this progress was pioneered in the Waterford facility.