The Government has pledged its full support today to almost 300 people who are to lose their jobs with the closure of the Unifi textile factory in Letterkenny.
The Tánaiste, Ms Mary Harney, said all the relevant state agencies were working to attract more investment into the county and would offer retraining to those being made redundant.
The US company has said continuing losses are to blame for the planned closure of the polyester yarn manufacturing facility in October.
The decision is the latest blow to the town, which has already suffered 500 job losses at the plant, and the embattled textile industry, which has seen 6,000 redundancies in the past 10 years.
Ms Harney insisted the Government was doing all it could to help the industry and the area. "I want to reassure workers that FÁS will be making their services available for retraining and upskilling," she said.
"The live register in Letterkenny has fallen, albeit by a small amount in the past year alone, and the population of Letterkenny has increased by 26 per cent in recent years, but Donegal is particularly difficult, there's no doubt about that," she added.
Ms Harney said she was shocked by the closure because the IDA and her department had been working with the company on a restructuring project since it announced it was to shed 120 jobs in March.
PA