Fifty five jobs are to be lost in Birr, Co Offaly between now and February at Leoni Ireland Ltd.
The company will be closing its Irish plant where 70 people are currently employed, resulting in 55 job losses. The remaining 15 are employed in the company’s Business Development Facility which will be maintained.
The closure is due to be completed by February of next year, although the company will begin serving termination notices to some of its workforce in the next four weeks.
Yesterday, the company met with SIPTU representatives to discuss the job losses.
As a result of this recent development, SIPTU has called on the Tanaiste Mary Harney to establish a task force on industrial development for Offaly. SIPTU’s Branch Secretary for Offaly Mr Seamus Buggle said that it was "absolutely imperative" that the Tanaiste gets involved in the situation.
"The big issue is that the Government is doing nothing," he told ireland.com. "We’re not getting any industry to the Midlands."
Leoni Ireland originally employed over 300 people in the area, but numbers have fallen over the last four years until today’s announcement of the plants closure. It is believed that the company is moving its main operations to Slovakia where a support unit has been operating for a number of years.