Fruit of the Loom shuts its doors
Production ceased today at the Fruit of the Loom company in Buncrana, Co Donegal.
The clothing factory, which once employed 3,500 workers, closed a week and a day ahead of schedule.
Most of the company’s spinning, knitting and dyeing facilities will be relocated to Morocco. A small number of staff, including management, will continue to work on site for the next few months to dismantle machinery.
Willie McCarthur, Chief Executive of Fruit of the Loom from 1987 to 1997, blames the effects of globalisation for finishing manufacturing in the north-west.
“Anything with a high labour content that can be done cheaper in India, China or eastern Europe is going to go,” he said. “And unfortunately in Donegal we see too much evidence of that.”
Mr McCarthur’s family first set up an underwear factory in the town 75 years ago, and in 1987 was responsible for Fruit of the Loom making a $200m (€156m) investment in the factory, creating 3,500 jobs.
“People forget how difficult the economic conditions were in the Republic and Northern Ireland in those days,” he said. “Very little investment and very high unemployment very difficulty public finances and political problems.
“We created a cross-border enterprise which was the largest of its type in the world, putting out about a million tee-shirts a week and 500,000 sweatshirts.”
Mayor of Buncrana Padraig MacLochlainn said since the company first announced job cuts in 1998, it has gradually eroded.
“Today is the final part of that and it’s the end of an era for Buncrana,” he said. “It didn’t take an economic genius to know that textiles is going to face tough times. Obviously we have some very tough challenges ahead.
“There was going to be cheaper markets. If you go back to the 80s and 90s there was a sense of denial, hoping beyond hope it wouldn’t materialise.”
Mr MacLouchlainn told RTÉ radio that area’s unemployment levels are four times the national average.
“We really have in every sense of the word a jobs crisis in Donegal and the north-west region,” he added. “There is a complete shortage of ideas or strategy from those who are tasked these problems.”
