Aventis Pharma will close its plant in Nenagh, Co Tipperary, with the loss of 230 jobs. The closure is expected to lead to feverish attempts by State agencies to find a replacement company.
The French-based international pharmaceutical firm said yesterday it would close its manufacturing base in July even though it was one of the most productive of its European factories.
Plant general manager Mr Alain Leduc said that a continuing rationalisation plan had resulted in the firm divesting 37 plants, including Nenagh, over the past two years, leaving it with 58.
The job loss is severe for the town of 6,000, following 12 months after the French-owned GMX electrical appliances factory in neighbouring Thurles said it was closing with a similar number of job losses.
A replacement tenant has not been found for the Shannon Development-owned building it occupied nor for the premises owned by the Offray ribbon manufacturing plant in Roscrea, which closed in 1999, shedding 140 jobs.
The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, said Aventis Pharma was working intensively with IDA Ireland in promoting the plant for another company. "The priority is to find alternative employment as soon as possible," she said.
The Minister for Defence, Mr Smith, in whose constituency the town is, said there had been some inquiries made to the IDA about the plant.
Mr Leduc said it had been one of the top performing plants in the European region, operating to FDA and Japanese market standards, "On paper, if you look at it, it looks like a good decision. When you translate it to the field, it is a tragedy."
He said there was over-capacity in the group for tablet and capsule manufacturing and plants in Britain and France, up to six times larger than Nenagh, would carry on that activity. The company's other manufacturing plant, in Waterford, where 160 people are employed, will be unaffected because it produces a different product range of creams, ointments and gels.
A Dublin-based marketing operation employing 80 people is also unaffected.
The Nenagh management was informed on Wednesday evening of the decision, although there had been speculation locally since February that there could be cutbacks.
Mr John Driver, human resources director at the plant, said the prospects for redeployment within the group were limited. He hoped a "fair" redundancy package would be negotiated for the workers, some of whom have worked at the plant for 21 years when it was owned by Rorer and began manufacturing the antacid medicine, Maalox.
Mr Driver was upbeat about the prospect of jobs with similar-type companies, saying there was a scarcity in the industry. "Many pharmaceutical plants in Ireland are expanding their capacity."
Aventis Pharma, which is based in Strasbourg, France, has a €17.7 billion turnover and made an after-tax profit of €1.6 billion last year, a 40 per cent increase on 2000.
A merger of Hoechst Marion Roussel and Rhône-Poulenc Rorer, Aventis was formed in December 1999 and employs 17,000 people as the world's largest drugmaker.
He added that a meeting with Mr John Lloyd, of the IDA's pharmaceutical division, was scheduled as part of an effort to find a replacement company.
Mr Kevin Costello, president of Nenagh Chamber of Commerce, said the town had become somewhat dependent on the income from the plant but was now seeking an immediate response from the Government and the IDA to secure alternative employment for the workforce in the town. "It has not had the benefit of a significant new industry in 20 years."
