The managing director of Buncrana's last shirt-manufacturing plant announced yesterday that the company would cease its operations at the end of the year with a loss of 67 jobs and transfer its production to Vilnius in Lithuania.
Seán Tighe said it was no longer cost-effective to produce shirts and blouses at the Clubman Omega factory at Lisfannon, on the outskirts of the Co Donegal town.
"We had hoped to do our premium brand here in Lisfannon, but in the last 18 months in particular costs have risen very sharply and the consumer prices have dropped, so the equation simply doesn't add up any more."
The company has been operating in Buncrana since 1985, and five years ago employed 185.
"We manufacture 8,000 shirts and blouses a week, but we lost a major order for 3,500 shirts per week because of the September 11th attacks in New York.
"We had an agreement with the Thomas Park company to supply them with 3,500 shirts a week in their new store which was to have opened in the World Trade Center on September 17th, just six days after the Twin Towers collapsed. Needless to say, they didn't open the store and the order was lost.
"But the main reason is the high cost of production here compared to Lithuania. Over the last five years wages have risen by 62 per cent, and over the last 12 months the price of clothing fell by 16 per cent."
Mr Tighe said the news of the closure was given to the employees yesterday morning.
"We will, with the Government and with the various State agencies, seek to secure jobs elsewhere for the workers facing redundancy.
"But the fact is that it takes about a quarter of the cost to produce a shirt in Lithuania than it does in Ireland.
"That is mostly due to wages, but there are indirect taxes as well.
"We outsourced some of our production to Lithuania a few years ago and that has worked very well.
"There comes a point where it just doesn't work any more, and that point has come now for us. If I had been asked five years ago about our future I would have said we would be very strong at this time, but costs have risen here, particularly over the last five years, that we simply cannot compete and the consumers are looking for cheaper and cheaper prices." He said 12 jobs would be retained in the factory's design and distribution section.