SIPTU has called on the Government to take urgent action to create jobs in Donegal after Fruit of the Loom announced a further 190 redundancies at its only remaining plant in the county at Buncrana.
Since last December's announcement of 770 jobs losses, three Fruit of the Loom plants have closed. SIPTU said this would bring the total of jobs lost at the company in the past year to 1,023. A fourth plant closed in Dungloe.
The 190 workers will lose their jobs from the end of January, and the company said no further job losses were envisaged during 2000. Short-time working introduced at the company's two plants in Buncrana and Derry in recent months is to end in November.
Workers were told the job losses would be in "fabric-sewing and associated departments", but more details will not be known until union representatives meet management today.
The SIPTU Donegal branch secretary, Mr Sean Reilly, said the county was facing a jobs crisis and unemployment at 20 per cent was nearly three times the national average.
He said that in addition to the jobs losses at Fruit of the Loom five other smaller factories had closed in the past year, but that no significant replacement industry had been found. An American health insurance company, Pacificare, opened with some 50 jobs.
"There has been closure after closure. I think we deserve better than that. I seem to have spent most of my life over the past year and a half negotiating redundancy packages. We need jobs and we need them now, not next year or the year after," Mr Reilly said.