As Navan Carpets is winding up, with the loss of 200 jobs, Joe Humphreys looks at one of the worst weeks for Irish industry
When Angela Tehan joined Navan Carpets in 1968 she hadn't planned to stick around. "It was just a job at the time. But like the vast majority of people who came here I stayed on because I loved the place," she says. "We're like one big family. We've worked together. We've partied together. We've made friends here. What's happening now is like part of you dying. It's like a death."
A receptionist with the manufacturing firm, she witnesses the New Order from her front office. The liquidator is now in charge, enforcing the firm's closure with the loss of 200 jobs. Security locks have been put on doors to stop anything from walking out.
It's a surreal end to what Tehan describes as a "close-knit, very parochial" operation which was once the pride of Co Meath.
Boasting customers down the ages from Aristotle Onassis and the Waldorf Astoria and Ritz Carlton in New York to the Druid's Glen golf club, the company has since gone into decline, racking up losses of €1.5 million last year. Unfavourable exchange rate movements, a drop in sales in the US, to which half of its products were exported, and changing fashions in favour of wooden floorboards have all conspired to bring Ireland's longest-established manufacturer of woven carpets to its knees.
To say it is a blow to Navan is an understatement. All the staff are said to live within a 15-mile radius. They include many husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, parents and children and cousins. They are described locally as "old Navan", people who are several generations in the town, and who spend most of their salaries - totalling an estimated €6 million annually - in the area.
"It's really the last stronghold of Navan. There's no other company like it," says Tehan. "I'm fourth generation Navan myself. There were only 3,000 people in the town when I went to school. Now there are 30,000."
Inside the lobby are reminders of the company's pedigree: glossy photographs of its carpets adorning the banqueting suites of the Four Seasons Resort, Aviara, California; and samples from its luxury collections named after local landmarks Boyne and Newgrange.
Five years ago the firm celebrated its 60th anniversary by giving all employees a specially-designed clock. It now stands as a souvenir for, in some cases, up to 40 years' service.
"There may be some young people who will find other work. But where would the likes of I go?" asks Bernie McCann who joined Navan Carpets 35 years ago. "There is no other manufacturing like this in the area." Strict division of labour means employees are skilled in one section only, be it spooling, winding, or finishing.
A mother of four children, one of whom used to work at the factory, she recognises her finishing skill is not easily transferable. "I can only hope we're lucky and someone comes in and takes the place over." There was no sign of such a move this week as discussions continued between management, unions and the liquidator about the sale of assets and redundancy payments.
A spokesman for Enterprise Ireland stressed it was not a rescue agency and could not offer direct assistance, while a spokeswoman for the IDA stated the company was outside the remit of its responsibility. She noted, however, the investment board would continue to promote the area in tandem with other State agencies.
Just how relevant such promotions will be to the workers of Navan Carpets is open to debate, given the IDA's emphasis on attracting higher-value jobs to the Republic. Last month IDA chief executive Sean Dorgan admitted its focus was on increasing the tendency of companies to choose urban locations where there were universities, leisure facilities and "areas with a depth of business activity".
Whatever about the local fallout, the closure of Navan Carpets is part of a worrying national trend in job losses in the past 18 months, and this week stands out as one of the darkest for many years for redundancies.
Since Monday 500 jobs have gone in five different companies, including Powerscreen in Co Westmeath, Neville Brothers Bakery and Mitsui Denman in Co Cork, and just yesterday Corus Service Centre in Dublin.
The announcements coincide with new figures from the CSO showing that the number of people signing on to the live register jumped by 7.1 per cent to 177,852 in June, to give the biggest monthly rise in over 16 years.
IBEC's director of enterprise, Brendan Butler, says: "We are not at a doomsday scenario but we are at a critical juncture in the economy. Depending on how we behave as a country over the next three, six or nine months we will either unravel everything we have achieved in recent years, or get the train back on track. It's a test of the partnership model, political leadership and all parts of society."
Another worrying trend is the "vast drop" in the number of private sector jobs created - from 128,500 in 1998 to just 2,100 last year. In contrast, the number of public sector jobs created over the same period rose from 17,100 to 30,500.
Butler notes those industries most affected are labour-intensive, low-skilled and heavily engaged in the export market. Exporters to the US and UK are getting 12 per cent less than they did a year ago because of exchange rate changes, he says.
The job losses also attracted concerned comment at this week's ICTU Biennial Delegate Conference, and from the Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed which called for "extra resources and supports" for workers in Navan and elsewhere to ensure they do not become long-term unemployed.
"It has been a horrible week," says INTO policy officer June Tinsley.
Sharing a number of IBEC's concerns, she remarks that unless issues such as the cost of inflation and ever-increasing insurance premiums are addressed "other firms are in danger of closure".
Ironically, the organisation launched a new information booklet on helping unemployed people get jobs just two days after the announcement at Navan. It may well be consulted by workers such as Tehan in the coming days, although she is not optimistic about her own prospects.
"Finding a job at this stage of my life? I don't know. I spent my good years here. I gave it everything. Of course, we'll miss the money. But it's more than that. I can remember coming through that door for the first time in a mini-skirt in the Swinging Sixties. When I close it behind me for the last time, I'll be heartbroken."
Hard times: The year of job losses
This Week
• Yesterday: Corus Service Centre relocates existing centre at Ballymount with loss of 37 jobs
• Powerscreen announces closure of its Kilbeggan, Co Westmeath factory with the loss of 118 jobs at the end of September.
• 50 jobs go as Neville Brothers bakery, Macroom, Co Cork, ceases operations.
• Navan Carpets in Co Meath goes into voluntary liquidation, with 200 job losses.
• 92 jobs go as Japanese chemical firm Mitsui Denman announces closure of Cork plant.
June
• Electronics company Flextronics announces loss of 200 jobs in Cork in addition to termination of 50 temporary contracts.
May
• 300-plus technology jobs go following closure of a manufacturing plant in Swords, Dublin, owned by Canadian firm Celestica, and restructuring at telecoms company Lucent.
• 163 jobs are lost at Dublin's Mater Hospital by not filling vacant posts and not renewing staff contracts.
• Galway-based Royal Tara Fine Bone China closes with loss of 80 jobs, blaming increased costs and competition from Asia.
• Cigarette group Gallaher closes its Tallaght, Dublin plant with 121 job losses.
April
• Unifi Textured Yarns (Europe) in Donegal to lay off more than a third of its 700 workforce.
March
• Technology firm Honeywell announces the loss of 63 jobs in Waterford, as it moves is software business to India.
• Automatic components factory HP Chemie-Pelzer closes in Waterford with loss of more than 80 jobs.
• 70 jobs go in Kilkenny as Tex Tech Industries (Ireland) announces it is to close within three months.
February
• Technicolor Home Entertainment Services announces closure of Youghal production plant, with loss of 230 jobs.
• Teradyne announces factory closure in Cavan with loss of 60 jobs.
• Graham & Heslip in Ennis, Co Clare closes with loss of 41 jobs.
January
• LogicaCMG cuts 310 highly-skilled jobs in Dublin and Cork.
• Desmond & Sons lays off 315 workers in Co Derry.
• Square D closes in Ballinasloe, Co Galway, with loss of 385 jobs.