Two hundred workers have been temporarily laid off from a meat plant in Co Donegal after a valuable contract with a Dutch supermarket was lost as a result of the continuing farmers' blockade. Dawn Meats in Ballyhaunis, Co Mayo, has also laid off 160 workers in its beef section.
Donegal Meat Processors, based in Carrigans in north Donegal, laid off 100 workers on Friday evening and the remaining 100 yesterday evening.
The general manager, Mr Brian Gribben, said that since last Tuesday afternoon they had been unable to bring cattle into the factory or get lorries out.
As a result, a valuable contract with its biggest customer, Albert Heijn, which has more than 700 supermarkets in the Netherlands, had been lost. Donegal Meats had been supplying 1,000 cattle per week to Albert Heijn, more than three-quarters of its total output.
"Because we have been unable to make any deliveries in six days, they made arrangements to source beef elsewhere in Europe," Mr Gribben said.
He said the plant had worked hard to win the contract with Albert Heijn after the Dutch company stopped buying Irish beef in 1996 because of the BSE scare. "Now we are only seven months into the contract, and they have had to go elsewhere," he added.
Mr Gribben said that while Donegal farmers were renowned for producing the top-quality continental breeds of cattle favoured by European customers such as Albert Heijn, they were now jeopardising not just the jobs of factory workers, but also their own livelihoods.
He said the company would try to win back the contract as soon as possible.
Some 160 workers at the Dawn Meats factory in Ballyhaunis have been temporarily laid off since Friday. A spokesman said that in the circumstances, there was no alternative.
Managers at plants say that while it is difficult to say at this stage if the blockade will have any long-term effect on business, they fear some custom will be lost.
"If our customers now find themselves having to look elsewhere for product, they might decide they don't want to get in that situation again, and keep on two or three suppliers instead of relying on us in the long term," said one manager.