More than half the 500 staff laid off after last month's fire at the C&D petfood factory will not be returning to work there in the foreseeable future, management has said.
Announcing that a further 40 would be re-employed shortly - bringing the workforce to 213 - and that 20 more would be hired by a neighbouring plant, the company told a meeting yesterday it had no option but to offer the rest redundancy.
Returning staff will work in the soft-packing section of the Edgeworthstown factory, all that remains of the business after the fire destroyed the cannery.
Attempts to outsource C&D's canning operation to a single supplier have failed. The business will now be scattered among seven suppliers in Ireland, Britain, France, Germany, and Denmark.
Of those not being re-employed, 125 full-time staff will get redundancy terms of three weeks' pay per year of service, inclusive of statutory entitlements. The remaining 142, who were part-time or temporary, will receive ex gratia payments.
Some workers leaving the meeting criticised the level of the redundancy deal. But managing director Philip Reynolds, who was applauded on several occasions during his address, said later that the package reflected the relatively low take-up by senior staff of re-employment offers.
Jobs were offered on a seniority basis, but a number of those eligible had made "other choices", he said.
He also played down an impression formed by some at the meeting that the plant would return to full-time operations within two years and that, in the words of one man, "everyone will be back eventually".
Mr Reynolds said the company would aggressively build up its soft-packaged business, but the canning element was gone and "it's not coming back".
C&D was now a business with a €28 million turnover, where previously it had been a business of €100 million, he added. The canning business would now fragment and, while C&D would continue to play a small role, it would no longer control the vast majority of that business.
"The sad fact is that, given the timetable for reinstatement, many of these people will be lost to C&D Foods forever," Mr Reynolds said.