Some 140 jobs are to be lost with the closure of a cosmetics factory in south Dublin. Oriflame Manufacturing's factory in the Sandyford industrial estate has been in production since 1979, producing cosmetics for Oriflame International, its Swedish parent company.
Work at the plant will continue as normal until May and continue on a phased basis until the third quarter of the year.
Mr Robert af Jochnick, the joint chairman and chief executive officer of Oriflame International, addressed the company's Irish workforce yesterday and said the decision to close the plant was taken with regret.
He said the viability of the Irish manufacturing division had been greatly affected in recent years as the company's focus shifted to eastern Europe and Asia. The company has a substantial manufacturing facility in Poland and the collapse of the Russian market in 1998 had led to excess manufacturing capacity.
The Minister for Labour Affairs, Mr Kitt, in whose Dail constituency the plant is, said he was very disappointed with the news of the closure. "Our main priority now is to ensure that we find alternative employment for the workers who have suffered a severe blow and I am confident we can achieve this objective, given the current buoyancy in the labour market," he said.
The Minister welcomed the company's decision to merge its research and development and quality assurance operations in a new "global technical centre" in Bray, Co Wicklow. This will initially employ 40 people.
A senior SIPTU member expressed surprise at the decision to close the plant.
A spokesman for the company said the plant had previously experienced difficulties in finding staff and had already had some small-scale redundancies.