A FRENCH OWNED company in Ireland which has put 350 workers on protective notice because of the dispute said it would not know until later today whether any of its lorries benefited from yesterday's temporary lifting of the blockade.
"We're hopeful some of them got through, but we can't confirm this yet," a spokesman for Telemecanique said last night. The company, which makes electrical components for industry, has seven trucks on the roads between its Normandy headquarters and the French ports, three carrying exports and four bringing back raw materials.
The spokesman said the Kildare plant had enough raw material to last until next week, when the question of lay offs will be reviewed.
A Co Cork co operative which exports fish to France and Spain said it was losing up to half the retail value of its exports because of delays. The Castletownbere Fishermen's Co op Society, which employs 350 people at sea and 145 on shore, sent out 10 truckloads of fish last week to continental markets.
The co op's manager, Mr John Dolan, cited the example of two trucks which left Ireland at the same time this week; the produce in one, which had been delayed for three days, had to be sold for 43 per cent less than the other, even though both were refrigerated.
"Because it's a fresh product, we can't hold back exports here. We just have to send them out and hope for the best," he said.
A haulage company in Co Monaghan has had a £75,000 lorry stolen on the Switzerland Italy border as an indirect result of the strike. The lorry, one of 20 operated by McArdle Transport in Inniskeen, was making a round about journey to Milan to avoid the French blockade when it was taken from a parking place near the customs post at Como.
A spokesman for McArdle's said 16 of the company's trucks were now caught in the dispute and the firm, which employs 35 people, would have no work available next week.
