The workers were dejected leaving Warners in Belmullet, Co Mayo, yesterday. The lingerie firm had closed its doors, causing the loss of 114 jobs.
The Bishop of Killala, Dr Thomas Finnegan, who 10 years ago was on hand in the same plant at Belmullet Industrial Estate to sympathise with workers when the Babygro firm closed, paid his respects to the latest workers to lose their jobs yesterday. The only consolation he could offer, he said, was the hope that the improved overall economic climate could be harnessed to replace the job losses soon.
The workforce at Warners was 85 per cent female and 70 per cent of the workers were under 40. They received just a month's notice of the closure - blamed on world market changes in the textile industry.
Many employees were returned emigrants who moved home to boom-time Ireland to work in the quiet north Mayo peninsula, geographically known as the Barony of Erris and similar in size to Co Louth.
At one time in its 10-year history in Belmullet the Warner plant employed 200 people, whole population of Belmullet town.
As the news of almost 1,000 jobs on the east coast greeted the contingent of departing Warners workers, a sense of anger and resentment marked the sadness of the occasion. Many people said they were left with no choice but to leave Belmullet. With completed redundancy forms in hand, they were now equipped with CVs to present to the dole office, they said.
Mr Chris Birrane said Warners had provided the only chance for so many in Belmullet. Now it was facing a scenario of depopulation once again.
One of the younger workers, Ms Orla Bourke (21), lamented that she could not see any other industry coming in to replace the jobs lost. "I will have to leave my home," she said.
Other departing workers showed a determination to overcome the closure. Mr Pat Carey, who moved home from England to work in Warners nine years ago, said: "This is as black a day as you could ever imagine for Belmullet but we are quite adamant we will get jobs and we will not accept less."
He is a member of a newly formed Belmullet task group, instigated by Minister for State Mr Eamon O Cuiv.
Calls have now been made for the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, who set up a task force for north Mayo 18 months ago in the wake of the closure of Asahi in Killala, to visit Belmullet to view firsthand the devastation the closure had caused. "The way we see it is that if the whole of Erris broke off the mainland of Ireland and fell into the Atlantic, there would be a sigh of relief in Dublin," said an angry Mr Birrane.