Staff at the Cardinal Health facility in Tullamore are expected to be told this morning that the plant is to close with the loss of 315 jobs.
The workers have been called to a meeting on Thursday to be addressed by management who are expected to tell them operations will be wound down on a phased basis between now and 2026. It is believed the company’s Dublin based operations will not be impacted.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Siptu area organiser Ashling Dunne said notification of the emergency meeting of staff came “out of the blue” and was a shock. While she did not want to speculate, it was “never generally good news” when a meeting like this was called, she said.
On Wednesday afternoon staff were advised that production would cease to allow for all staff to attend the meeting on Thursday morning for an announcement.
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“We’re not going to speculate until we have all the information to hand. It would be remiss for us to do so, but, generally speaking, it’s not normally good news for an announcement at this level,” Ms Dunne said.
When pressed, she acknowledged that the announcement could be job losses, closure or a number of redundancies. “At this moment in time, it could be anything. But we just don’t have any information because, to be fair to the workers, we don’t want to speculate until we know exactly what it is we’re doing.
“We weren’t given any insight or word that anything was coming down the line. This was completely out of the blue and comes as a shock, really, to be honest.”
Ms Dunne, who has been representing staff at Cardinal Health for over five years, said there had been no indication that the company was in any difficulty or that there would be any job losses or impact to employment at the Tullamore site.
There would be a number of options for staff, she said. “We absolutely will have to make contact with the IDA and the Government to intervene immediately. But again, I don’t want to speculate. Until we have all the details and information to hand it would be unsafe to do so.”
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