The trade union Siptu has said that there is now no chance of preserving the 100 jobs at the boning hall at Meadow Meats in Rathdowney, Co Laois.
Speaking after talks with management at the plant, Siptu branch organiser Miriam Hamilton also warned that there could be hundreds of other job losses across the meat processing industry unless the Government funded a strategy for restructuring major producers.
The Dawn Meats Group said yesterday that it was to merge part of its operations currently based at Rathdowney with a factory in Co Waterford.
Some 150 people are currently employed at Meadow Meats in Rathdowney, Co Laois. The factory's boning facility is to be shut down by the end of August. Cattle slaughtering at the factory will continue and 50 people who work in the abattoir will continue to be employed there
Ms Hamilton said that while the union had had "a good meeting" with management at the company this morning, the talks had been about "relocation and redundancy deals", not saving jobs for Rathdowney
She said that the Government was providing €69 million in funding to the Dawn Group, which owns Meadow Meats, as well as to Kepak and AIBP to rationalise and consolidate production.
However she said that the Government was not providing the same sort of supports to the workers, farmers and other members of local communities adversely affected by this strategy.
"We have already lost 100 jobs in Cork with the concentration of production by the Dawn Group at Charleville and now 100 more jobs are being lost in Rathdowney with the boning hall facility being transferred to Grannagh in Waterford," she said.
"Dawn Meats and Kepak are planning to build a giant abattoir in Kilbeggan shortly, which will lead to more job losses elsewhere in the midlands."
Ms Hamilton said that while Siptu could see the rationale behind restructuring the industry to make it more competitive at international level this needed to be done in a way that also protected the communities that depend on the industry for a livelihood.
"We do not want a repeat of the scandal involving the pig industry last Christmas, when a package of €180 million was made available to deal with the contamination crisis but €600,000 could not be found to compensate laid-off production workers for loss of earnings," she said.
"That was for two weeks. But if plants such as Midleton and Rathdowney continue to close, then those jobs will go for ever in towns and villages where very little alternative employment is available."